American football is very boring. But I want to go to every game.

So when I left you my flatmate was about to arrive and my first week of studying was beginning. It’s been a busy week, and I will write about it very soon. But first, a diversion.

This evening (or just about yesterday evening as I write this), I went to see an game of American Football. I have some thoughts.

The game was at the huge, 77 thousand plus-seater stadium at MSU. The game was between the MSU Spartans and Youngstown State University (which is in Ohio)  and we won 28-6. Facts over, now for opinion…

I think American football could have been a good game. It’s quite distinctive and has interesting mechanics that are very different from other sports.  It’s repetitive, but it has a fair share of exciting moments. In all fairness, I quite enjoyed it when they were playing.

Unfortunately, that was only about 0.000000001% of the time. The game is a series of plays, each lasting roughly between five and ten seconds. Between each play they spend at least thirty seconds, and often much longer, reforming, swapping team members and talking amongst themselves.

This turns what should be a good game into hours of sitting around waiting for the brief moments when something is actually happening. In conclusion, the sport of American football is, in my not so humble opinion, very boring.

However…

If you ever spend any length of time in America, go to a football game. Because, much like the baseball game last week, the sport may be boring, the event was simply amazing.

It started with the marching bands, with the Youngstown State band coming out first and playing their “fight song” and some other stuff. It was quite big, maybe a hundred or so.

And then our band marched out. And then some more. And some more. The MSU marching band is huge. Ranked up they filled half the pitch. When they say marching, they mean marching. Seeing perhaps a three hundred strong band effortlessly move, whilst playing, into massive and prefect formations was quite impressive. They were to save their best trick until later- playing the drums upside-down, which has to be seen to be believed.

Along with the band came cheerleaders, dancers, flag-bearers and the MSU mascot, Sparty. I felt very sorry for Sparty, or the person inside him. It’s still very hot here, and he must have been melting in that suit.

The band played up whenever there was a break in play (i.e. most of the time), leading the crowd in chants and songs.  At other time the crowd simply did it themselves.

What is it with the Americans and sports? Their games are boring, but they really know how to put on a show. Maybe they’ve got it the right way round…

I did feel sorry for the opposing team. Out of nearly 77 thousand spectators, the number wearing Youngstown red instead of Spartan green and white was, oo, about two hundred. If that.