Superbowled

Normally, if I'm forced to watch US sports I'm strictly an NBA basketballer. Maybe it's 'cos I know the game well from playing it at school.

Baseball is just rounders player by scowling miserablists in little boys clothes. Can't take that serious.

But once a year I crack open a case of Bud and stay up watching this amazing late night spectacle that is the Superbowl.

What I find fascinating is that it's clearly a bastard cousin of the rugger over here. Except it's from another planet. The fact that an entire continent obsesses about it (and pays those big lunks huge money to crash into each other) make it all the more compelling.

I suppose it's like the rubberneckers slowing down on the motorway to gawp at a car smash. You don't understand what the hell went on, but it sure looks nasty.

The way these American football dudes dress is reason enough to watch. Motorbike helmets fitted with bull bars, HUGE shoulderpads of a size we haven't seen since Joan Collins in Dynasty. Tight lycra Olivia Newton John kecks on. Superbowl should be renamed the Sartorial Challenge!

And the refs. What sort of outfit is that?!? In proper football the men in black look well cool, even if they are short baldy schoolteachers. Over there the ref is dressed like the waffle guy on Bridlington seafront. And they've got lots of mates to consult if the haven't got the balls to make a clear decision.

The game is sold on action and physical confrontation and yet the game is more stop than start. Time out this. Time out that. One guy throws. The other guy runs and tries to catch his lob. And everyone else just smashes into each other for about four seconds. Then they have another ten minute time out to talk about it.

Another baffling aspect of this game is the way that the entire team changes depending upon whether you have possession of not. And some little squirt is paid millions just to come of to do the kicking on deadballs. That would be like Beckham only coming on the pitch to take free kicks. Its for this reason that a player recently made NFL history by being the first woman to score points in a pro-game when there were a dozen brick-shithouse blokes four times her size on the field.

I know you lot at the Yorkshire Rams are going to argue the toss. Fair play. Especially as you came within a touchdown of being the UK's top team last year. At least this is an American sport that doesn't stop the moment it starts to drizzle. These boys get out there in all weathers, and don't let a blizzard get in the way of a good ruck.

But the killing joke is the way that they call themselves the World Champions. What a load of bull. A world championship has to be open to all comers, not just a bunch of city franchises. And since the rest of the world sees this sport as a video game come to life the World Champion crack is a guaranteed wind up.

At least in baseball there's a sprinkle of interest in Canada and Japan. And in basketball there's a sense of modesty about the NBA championship, which is seen as being a club competition. In Basketball the US team actually plays other countries for the right to be called World Champs (they blew it by the way - I think they came fifth!) and they are by no means guaranteed the win.

But in the case of this mad sport, seemingly all brawn and no brain, it sort of sums up the image of Americans abroad at the moment. They are playing a game no other country gives a hoot about, and they wonder why no-one's buying their crap about Iraq. As always, though, the Yanks will keep on with their game anyway regardless of what we foreigners think.

Tampa Bay kicked serious ass mind you. The Raiders sucked until the fourth, dude! Any Bud left in the icebox? Sweet!

B