SIDELINE
Observations, Opinion & Occasional Silliness by Richard L Gale
Ready for the Turkey November 27, 2008
As if working through Thanksgiving rather than dining with the family isn't bad enough, just imagine what it's
like being a Detroit Lions player this year. At 0–11 and looking like 0–16 in the making, the Lions
get to host the 10–1 Tennessee Titans. The Titans aren't just double–digit favorites, but are coming
off their first loss of the season and looking for somebody to punish. Ouch.
Still, I wish tasty 'turducken' sandwiches to each and every one of the Lions fans who once again sold out the game,
despite the awfulness of their team. The last 1000 tickets barely sold this week, allowing local Lions fans to watch
the game (probably between their fingers). Over here, we don't have TV blackouts to worry about — it'll be right
there on our screens, and at 5.30 I'll be there on the couch, ready to celebrate Thanksgiving in my own football–obsessive way.
There's three sporting time–outs I have maintained throughout my working career:
1. Only working mornings during the first week of Wimbledon;
2. Starting late the morning after the Superbowl;
3. Knocking off an hour early on Thanksgiving.
The first one isn't that unlikely for a Brit. My commitment to the second one provokes the usual explanation to
those who don't follow the sport. The third causes the most perplexed looks from those who firstly don't even realize
it's Thanksgiving, and secondly don't detect any trace of an American accent. That usually leads to me explaining that
Thanksgiving is also a special treat for football fans.
"Oh," they'd say, "so the game's on TV?"
And then I'd reply that no it wasn't, but if you twiddled the radio to a certain frequency and stood it on its end on
the back of the sofa, then sometimes, sometimes...
"And that's what you're going to do this evening?"
Well, that's what I used to do. Then came the internet, and then came Sky's commitment to showing non–Sunday games.
And now we have three live Thanksgiving games and Aldi's advertising Turducken under the less Madden–inspired monicker
of '3–bird roast'. And you can't get one for love nor money. Such has been the success of Aldi's sales that I'm starting
to wonder if I'm not the only Brit slyly acknowledging the American holiday on the side.
It would nice to think that Thanksgiving football could become the latest US holiday tradition to absorbed into the British mix,
the way that trick or treat has taken hold on Hallowe'en. I'd like to think that a growing number were thinking to themselves
'I know, I'll have turkey tonight and flick over to the NFL', turning the Lions game into a drop–in sporting occasion the
way the Grand National is in the UK for people who otherwise ignore horse racing, or Wimbledon is for people who didn't give a hoot
for tennis one month earlier. But I'm pretty sure that isn't happening.
If only Barry Sanders' career and annual Thanksgiving TV coverage had coincided.
Observations, Opinion & Occasional Silliness by Richard L Gale