Wembley Finale

The reason we came to London was to watch the Titans play the Chargers on Sunday, Oct. 21.

We boarded the subway at the Green Park station and 20-25 minutes later, we were getting off at the Wembley Park station. Once we exited the subway station, we saw a sea of humanity, all walking along Wembley Park to Wembley Stadium. We paused for some photos.

We arrived shortly after noon and had plenty of time before the game began at 2:30 p.m., so we stopped at the Novotel Hotel along the route to get some drinks. While waiting in line, we met some friendly Brits, John Eastwood and his nephew, Liam. We were as excited about meeting them as they were about meeting some Titan "Homies"! They bought us a round of drinks, and then we reciprocated. Liam was wearing a Seattle Seahawks jersey and John, smart man, was wearing a Titans jersey!

We spotted "Clay Matthews" and had to pose for a photo with him. After wrapping up a delightful conversation and drinks with John and Liam, it was time to continue walking to the stadium.

In the subway and along the route to the stadium, we noticed every NFL team represented by the jersey-wearing fans. It became apparent that the NFL has done a very good job of cultivating a following over here, not just with people from London but with people from all over the UK and Europe.

Wembley Stadium holds about 91,000 people! You may recall that it was used during the London Olympics. On this day it was not full, but they announced the attendance as 84,301. This is quite a bit more than we're used to seeing at Nissan Stadium! The Brits did an excellent job of keeping the crowd orderly and under control.

Inside, the stadium is clean and distinctive and roomy; we never felt crowded. We grabbed some tasty hamburgers inside the stadium. Jane is modeling one of the soccer-style scarves that we bought to commemorate the event:

We loved our club-level seats which were sheltered from the elements. A concrete wall was in back of us, with the next row a ways up, which meant that we could stand up whenever we wanted and not bother anyone behind us.

We are enjoying ourselves:

The Titans captains are moving to the middle of the field for the coin toss:

When we arrived at our seats, we found that there was a Chargers flag laid at every seat, since this was a Chargers home game. Though we perceived that more Titans fans than Chargers fans flew over from the United States for this game, most of the unaffiliated Europeans in the stands were waving their Chargers flags and rooting for the "home" team. We were sitting next to Malcolm, a neutral man from Oxford, England who had "season tickets" to the 3 NFL London games; and Joe, a man from London who had been a Titans fan for some time.

The Titans actually showed up for this game! The Titans scored a field goal on their first drive. Despite several mistakes, including allowing the Chargers two cheap 75-yard touchdowns, throwing an interception in the red zone at the end of the first half which otherwise would have been a certain score, and missing a 50 yard + field goal, near the end of the fourth quarter the Titans scored a second touchdown to come within one point (19-20). With less than 30 seconds left in the game, Coach Vrabel had the choice of having the kicker kick the extra point to tie, or having the team go for a 2 point conversion. He chose the latter option, the play was not successful, and the game ended then with the Chargers winning.

It was only 5:30 p.m., the game had only taken 3 hours, and it had flown by. We felt a little cheated and wished they had gone for overtime to give us our money's worth, if for nothing else. We felt that the Titans had a better chance of winning in overtime, since they were playing well.

So the day was perfect, except that the Titans did not win the game. At least they made it a good game! And we were proud of all the Titans fans who showed up to cheer for the team.

We surfed through the crowd, got on the subway, and got back to our local pub ("The Kings Arms") in time to catch the second quarter of the NFL games that began at noon back home.

Brock drowned his sorrows in beer at the pub.

Jane drowned her sorrows by having dessert back at the hotel:

On Monday, our travels went extremely smoothly. Our flight left London at 12:35 p.m. and arrived in Atlanta after a 8-1/2 hour flight. We had a 2 hour layover, and our flight to Nashville landed around 7:00 p.m. Just like that, smooth as silk!

It was a perfect trip, and we loved every single minute of it! We are so glad that we traveled to London!