‘It’s about to go global’: American college football rocks into Wembley – a photo essay

Rarely had Wembley Way seen or heard such a commotion. The famous 500-yard long concourse leading to the national (association) football stadium in London played host to a sea of raucous American football fans on Saturday, as they gathered to mark the first ever top-tier college football game on British turf.

Pundits from Fox’s Big Noon Kickoff Show were broadcasting live from outside the venue – a curious spectacle in which the hosts even ate fish and chips in front of a fake Grenadier guard – as thousands of supporters around them waved placards and chanted college anthems. It fuelled a tailgate party atmosphere that wouldn’t have felt out of place in the States.

Dubbed the Union Jack Classic, the game pitted two sports-mad colleges, Kansas and Arizona State, against each other in front of 46,000 partisan fans, with many of the players one day hoping to play in the NFL.

“There’s a lot more grit and hunger in college football than in the NFL,” said Trey Latham, an ambitious 22-year-old linebacker for Kansas, on the eve of the clash. “College football teams go at it neck and neck. NFL players know they’re already fed, but we’re trying to feed our loved ones. There are scouts watching and people are desperate [to make it].”

The only previous college football game to be staged in the UK was in 1988, when Richmond beat Boston University at Crystal Palace. And while 42 NFL games have been staged in the UK capital over the past 19 years, college football has remained absent.

Thomas Hensey, co-founder of the Union Jack Classic, says the idea of bringing college football back to London had been rattling around his head for years, but it grew serious during a conversation at a famous British boozer.

“I was over here at the Ted Lasso pub [the Prince’s Head in Richmond] with Rob Yowell, who’s one of the other partners, and I said ‘I think it’s time to bring college football here’.

“There’s 14 million American football fans in this country and four million of those are what they deem avid. That’s a pretty large crowd. So we asked ourselves: ‘Are we willing to risk everything at our stage in our careers for this?’ And we said: ‘Hell yes, we’re all in!’”

Crucially, Kenny Dillingham, the Arizona State coach, was also keen, says Hensey. “He’s a real character, a real visionary, and he said ‘I’ll play anyone, anywhere, anytime!’”

The blueprint for the event was “to take some of the best traditional game day dynamics – the marching bands, the cheerleaders – and then add a bit of rock and roll, a little country, a little hip hop, and turn it into a concert with an American football game stuck in the middle of it,” says Hensey.

The razzmatazz began when the players emerged on to the field amid a tunnel of fireworks, before Paige Blake played the US national anthem on an electric guitar.

Every break in play was plugged with sound and colour as “spirit squads” including cheerleaders performed slick routines, while marching bands and American musicians brought even more energy to proceedings – leaving a footprint that will give the Wembley groundstaff a headache before England’s football match (or should that be soccer match) with Spain next weekend.

The game itself was less eventful than the pageantry that surrounded it. Spanning more than three hours and 30 minutes, Arizona State won comfortably, despite the eventual 24-17 scoreline, with Jaren Hamilton running in a 100-yard kick-off return as the game swung decisively in their favour near the midway point.

College football players are used to big stadia. All of the teams in the Big 12 conference, to which Kansas and Arizona State belong, average crowds of more than 30,000 per home game, and some, like Brigham Young University, can attract north of 60,000.

But travelling to the UK and playing on the hallowed turf at Wembley was a unique thrill for the young players involved, the majority of whom didn’t even own passports prior to the trip.

“This was my first time going out of the United States,” said Kansas cornerback Jalen Todd. “Being from Detroit, I never expected to be playing football in the UK. Wembley is iconic.”

In the days before the game, both teams took a boat trip along the Thames and scaled Tower Bridge – the landmark that features on the Union Jack Classic winner’s trophy – to give them inspiration.

The Big 12 commissioner, Brett Yormark, says the event “exceeded” his expectations even though the crowd was well short of the anticipated 60,000, while Hensey says he is targeting a full stadium when they return with two new teams next year. “I personally think college football is on the cusp of what the NFL was 20, 30 years ago, and it’s about to go global,” he said.

For Dillingham, the greatest positive was the cultural impact of the trip on his players. “We had multiple players say ‘I love this place, London is awesome, I want to come back and spend summer or Christmas out here.’ It’s an experience that I think everybody will remember for the rest of their lives.”