So the NFL visits London for the third year running today, and once again I have spectacularly failed to make an effort to get myself to the game. There are several reasons for this, the cost of the ticket, the cost of getting to and from the game, but none of them particularly stack up against how big a fan of the sport I consider myself to be, now my second favourite behind football.
Instead every year I find myself hoping that the game will be a wash-out, that one side will completely have dismantled the other by the second quarter, and that it will rain, rain more heavily than it ever has done before in the capital and make it a truly miserable viewing experience in the stadium.
The reality always fails me, the two games so far have both been considered successes, and I have been left more embittered and annoyed with myself every time.
The great thing about British followers of American football is the cult support it has, and in the five years since I started following it this support has only blossomed further, and with the advent of the International Series, has finally broken through into the mainstream.
This has created an interesting demographic of fans spanning two generations both of which have grown up around the television coverage provided at the time, the fans that watched the sport on Channel 4 in the 1980s, and the more recent converts like myself, who have been fed on a diet of Channel 5.
It's disappointing to see that the BBC won't be showing live coverage of the game this time around, but part of me is glad. For some reason there is satisfaction in keeping the sport away from the mainstream. It is a strange and unique feeling to watch a fantastic game played across the Atlantic one night, and have nobody and no media coverage talking about it the next day.
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