London braces itself for a Viking Invasion

by UK American Sports Fans

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As the NFL hits London once again this weekend, I thought I’d have a quick fast forward to this time next year, when Wembley Stadium would have already hosted one game and preparing to look forward to another.

When the St. Louis Rams backed out of their initial four year plan to host games at the famous stadium, a replacement ‘home’ team was quickly found. The Jacksonville Jaguars stepped in to honour the vacant 3 years, and will host the San Francisco 49ers in late October. The NFL has teased its UK fans with talk of a second regular season game coming to our shores.

Well that pipe dream is now reality with the announcement that the Minnesota Vikings will host the Pittsburgh Steelers on September 29th next year.

The Vikings are not strangers to playing abroad, and have in fact visited Wembley before, back in 1983, when the sport was just being introduced over here. It featured with short highlights on ITV’s flagship sport show, World of Sport, then, of course, the boom when Channel Four had its delayed highlights programme.

On August 6th 1983, in front of just over 30,000 ex-pats and curious Brits, the then St. Louis Cardinals came over to play the Vikings, invited by an English entrepeneur. The game, no surprise really, made a loss in terms of money. The pot had been stirred in many other ways, however, as Head Coach Bud Grant led his Minnesota team to a 28-10 win, in what was called ‘The Global Cup’.

Since then the Vikings have invaded Gothenburg, Sweden in 1984, beating the Chicago Bears 28-21, then onto Berlin in Germany to clash and defeat the Buffalo Bills 20-6. Finally their crusade took them to Tokyo, Japan and a 17-6 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.

So, as they enter the arena of the International Series next year they defend a 4-0 overseas record, and they could also be defending thier NFC North title as they have started this season very brightly.

The last time they faced the Steelers was back in 1995 at Three Rivers Stadium, and ran out comprehensive 44-24 winners. High scoring like that will go down very nicely in front of the hungry UK fans.

Time to dust off that old purple sweater….