By Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, London
CNN
—
On an unseasonably warm autumnal morning in East London, Mary Beth Schumen and her husband have made an early start to their Sunday. Wearing the blue jerseys of their beloved Buffalo Bills, the Indiana couple are easy to spot in Leytonstone, a quiet corner of the English capital which feels a world away from the fizz and whir of the center of the city, where tourists usually flock. NFL attires are rarely seen in these parts.
Yet on London’s underground, the Schumens are not the only ones in Bills blue. Mary Beth, a 51-year-old on a “bucket list” week-long trip to England, uses her smartphone for direction but there is little need for technological help: just follow the other early risers turning the usually most sedate time to be on the capital’s public transport into an unfamiliar hubbub of passengers standing shoulder-to-shoulder, shuffling at times like penguins as they engineer some extra space.
It is to the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium that Bills fans are heading en masse, the home of the aforementioned English Premier League side, where the Bills will ‘host’ the Jacksonville Jaguars in the NFL’s second international weekend of the 2023 season.
Any fears of the Bills lacking the support that they would enjoy at Highmark Stadium quickly dissipates at the sight of a standing-room carriage awash in red, white and blue on the way to White Hart Lane, the nearest station stop to the Bills’ adopted home.
Fans who have never met before chat, finding out where the stranger standing nearest to them is from and asking for details on their arrival dates in the UK. A father has brought his two children from the US to London for a 10-day break, while a teacher tells a fellow Bills fan she needed special permission to skip Friday classes to travel to England. She’ll be back at work on Monday, she says. It’s a whistle-stop weekend for her and many.
Swaying side-to-side to the beat of the train is Eric Schuhmann of Saxony, Germany, an NFL fan spending the weekend in London to watch the sport he loves, rather than the team he follows. “It’s another feeling to be live in the stadium,” he tells CNN Sport in anticipation of his third London-based NFL game.
He has spent, he estimates, around £1,000 ($1,224), but as he joyfully talks about the NFL there’s a sense the cost matters little.
The red and blue of the Bills is the predominant color of the day, while there is a sprinkling of Jaguar turquoise to be seen and “union Jags” flags being sold in a clever piece of marketing.
A crowd of 61,273 fill the stadium, a new record for an NFL game at Tottenham it is announced over the public address system. It is a superb, familial atmosphere, a fine advert for the sport on the world stage.
“The ‘Bills mafia’ was very present and made themselves heard today,” Bills head coach Sean McDermott would tell reporters after the match. “Super appreciative of the fans that came out.”
Outside the stadium, still over three hours from kick-off, is Jenne Benjamin from Buffalo, here in London with her family – the oldest members of the clan being her octogenarian grandparents, the youngest her 16-year-old cousin, Eden Gibson.
“This is a once in a lifetime experience, I’ve never been to London and I’m in my 40s. It was a good chance to root for our home team but also see a different country,” she tells CNN Sport, explaining the holiday has been a year in the planning, ever since the schedule was announced.
A lifetime of memories have already been made, the family says, though the result, a 25-20 win for the Jaguars may have soured the afternoon a little.
“They had better energy than we did,” said McDermott afterwards answering a question on whether the Bills suffered in having arrived in the UK just on Friday.
The team would review the game during their Sunday flight home, an understandably downbeat McDermott said. “We’ll need to evaluate everything,” he added.
Having played at Wembley last week, beating the Atlanta Falcons 23-7, the Jaguars had time to acclimatize and recuperate for this AFC battle. Whether that was a factor or not, it was the visiting team, playing in London for the 11th time – the most of any NFL team – which started the better, taking an 11-0 lead into the second quarter with Zay Jones scoring a six-yard touchdown to help put the Jaguars in command.
It was a lead that would prove significant as a thrilling conclusion to the game played out.
Both sides scored two touchdowns apiece in the last quarter – but crucially the Jaguars never fell behind. Travis Etienne ran in twice to give Jacksonville a 25-13 lead, before Josh Allen – who threw for 359 yards – bulldozed over with the help of his teammates.
The game was set for an exciting crescendo, but a late fumble from Bills wide receiver Stefon Diggs – who finished the afternoon with eight catches, 121 receiving yards and a touchdown – ended any hopes Buffalo had of a comeback.
Ultimately, it was back-to-back London wins for the Jaguars who are now, like the Bills, 3-2 for the season.
