American Football

Yes, there has been a break in transmission; no, there is no explanation for it apart from the fact my feet have barely touched the ground since October. I promise, I'll write about Thanksgiving this November; it's a wonderful thing. But January is not the time to discuss it.

So, the Californian winter is in full whatever. Swing is the wrong word, and so, most decidedly, is Flow. There has been barely a drop of rain since I last wrote to you. This is unusual; if California has seasons, then it has a wet season and a dry season.So far, the wet season is decidedly conspicuous by its absence. In a region of vineyards and fruit orchards, where cattle are calving and pastures are dry, this has caused more than one rancher to look skyward and frown at what is essentially a clear blue sky.This is due to change imminently; a cloud-bank the width of the entire state is approaching the coast between Monterrey and San Francisco, according to wunderground.com- bringing some sorely needed moisture.

The winter tides have been spectacular to behold. As the waves approach the shore, the offshore wind peels the crests from the tops of the waves and flings them back out to sea in white arcs. Over the coarse of a day, the sea spray can cut down visibility quite drastically.

 Looking through 12-foot waves never gets boring. This paddle-surfer took 10 minutes to get through the breakers.

On days like this, the waves take out their anger by smashing over the breakwater at Morro Bay. Standing in the wrong place is unwise.

Now, after eight months in the US it wasn't just the frosty mornings, rain and short days I was missing. It's been a good while since I've been to a football match. Now, when I say football, I'm not talking about the American game for men with funny shaped balls. I frankly like watching baseball and basketball but I still have to get used to American football. The exciting bits are exciting, there is obvious skill involved, but the padding's weird compared to, say, Rugby League or Aussie Rules, and I get frustrated by the fact that players are only expected to do one thing well- there are 53 players in an NFL squad, but only 11 on the field, and they swap the entire team in and out depending on whether they're attacking or defending. I dare say I'll get to see a game one day, and I might even enjoy it. But not yet.

Bill Bryson, a writer who left the US for the UK as a young man, compared the baseball he had grown up with and adored, to the football he was surrounded with in Britain, and concluded that it was simply a matter of what you grew up with. It isn't that one game is inherently better than any other, it's just that sports fans tend to grow up with their sport, and it's like growing up with a language. I grew up watching football. 

Actually, not just watching it; I watched it less often than I listened to it on the radio: Metro FM used to  broadcast every Newcastle game live when I was a kid.  I grew used to the calm, authoritative voice of Charles Harrison describing the exploits of Cole, Beardsley and Srnicek, and took for ever to get used to younger, more excitable commentators when Harrison retired. Didn't they realise they didn't have to make it sound more exciting? That to us, listening at home, on a Saturday afternoon or a Wednesday night, with our posters on our walls taken from the Newcastle Evening Chronicle, the match was already the most exciting thing happening anywhere in the world?

While I don't remember much about the first football match I went to, I do remember ridiculously irrelevant details. I remember it was against Luton Town in 1992. The internet tells me it was on September 2nd. I knew we won 2-0, and the internet confirms those goals were scored by Lee Clark and David Kelly. Off the top of my head I can tell you that Dad and I sat in the Milburn Stand, ate haggis and chips from the chip shop on Clavering Road in Swalwell before the game and we parked the car in Wellington Street. It was what we- my sister and I- grew up with.

And suddenly, it hasn't been there any more. Traditionally, but not always, teams play at 3pm on Saturday. That's 7am on a Saturday for all of us on Pacific Time. That means I usually catch the live text commentary on the BBC, as well as updates on Twitter, but usually just the second half. Due to rights restrictions I rarely hear radio commentary or see TV highlights. So Stace decided to do something about it.

We sat on a cold evening in Cambria on aluminium bleachers, cheering on the Coast Union Broncos- Stacey's old High School. OK, so Coast Union vs Taft isn't quite Newcastle vs Sunderland, but never mind. The Broncos, in white, worked hard in midfield during the first half while Taft soaked all the pressure up. There was a cynical and vicious central midfielder playing for the blues; I expect he has a bright future in the game; if not, the ballet will take anyone who can get their feet up that high. At half time, Coast took off their most effective, most creative players- a number 8 who had great agility and a number 11 whose strength, power and skill made him quite brilliant. 

All right, it was a cold, misty night in Cambria with no prospect of a pint in the Newcastle Arms before the match. But, the game had its talking points, the lads all played well and it was bloody entertaining. As the Germans say, the ball is still round: football is football wherever you go. As if to prove the point, the referee was just as inconsistently awful as any in the English Premier League; if you go home talking about the dickhead with the whistle, you know you've been to the match.