Another Sunday passes and another embarrassing defeat occurs.
This season marks the 40th anniversary of the Chicago Bears’ triumph at Super Bowl XX. So this seems like an apt opportunity to explain how I came to follow a team that has now lost 12 of its last 13 competitive matches.
For that, we need to travel back to the 1980s, and more specifically 1986.
Rather than playing with the latest Nintendo or watching TikTok videos like the kids today, I would amuse myself with ‘scrapbooking’.
Essentially, this involved me sitting at the kitchen table and cutting out items from the Argos catalogue, then sticking them in a book. There would occasionally be a television guide thrown in for good measure.
Sticking a fridge in a scrapbook
One fateful day, the front of the TV Times happened to feature a Chicago Bears defensive tackle. The refrigerator I put in my scrapbook was not one that could be purchased at Argos. Rather, it was the Bears’ William Perry himself.
The powerful imagery alone had me hooked. This edition of the magazine would have been promoting live coverage of Super Bowl XX, when the Bears famously won their one and only Lombardi trophy.
Therefore, at the tender age of six, I was unwittingly what would be known by future generations as a ‘glory supporter’. You will see them all over the NFL UK landscape. Pockets of fans where their age is identifiable by their club’s golden era.
We all know a San Francisco 49ers fan in their forties, a New England Patriots fan in their thirties and, more recently, the lesser-spotted Kansas City Chiefs fan in their twenties.
The early highlights show
In the 1980s, the TV coverage was limited to a highlights show each Sunday, plus live coverage of the Super Bowl.
The Sunday show actually showed highlights from seven days previously, although I was oblivious to that at the time.
The sheer Americana of it all was intoxicating. Turning on the TV on a cold November evening was like a portal to another world. I loved the sun blazing down in Miami or San Francisco, bright sky, crisp uniforms and non-stop action.
How to get ’em hooked
The merchandise machine was soon in full flow, and this was a bigger hook to kids than anything else. There was a clamour to give away free gifts, stickers, cards and anything else that would tap in to the craze.
Channel 5 could learn a lesson from all this. How many people do you know that got into a sport from watching a game show? Just put something collectable into crisp packets and the kids will lap it up.
I fondly remember a brand of maize snacks shaped like football helmets. In each pack, there was a free sticker depicting a helmet of one of the teams, with a wallchart to collect them all. Great times.
Growing up, growing apart
As the 90s started, I left primary school and my interest started to wane. A lot of fans from that era seem to have the same story, but nobody can quite put their finger on why.
Soccer started to take over: the Italia 90 effect and the Premier League. I got a Nintendo Gameboy and an Commodore Amiga. I became more interested in what my peers were doing. It certainly did not involve watching NFL on a Sunday evening.
It would take a while before I was pulled back into the sport. But that is a story for another day…
