Last night on a random February Monday morning I, like millions others out there, pretended to like Football (American Football that is, I’ve always liked real football). With a four pack of Budweiser, two packs of £1 Doritos and a jar of salsa by my side, I was ready. The night was kicked off by Idina Menzel (Adele Nazeem if you’re John Travolta) singing the national anthem. Personally I would’ve preferred her to sing Let It Go but you can’t have everything. The night was then literally kicked off and what ensued was beyond me.

Firstly, let it be said that the US commentators are actually quite good. British sports commentators tend to only offer minimal insight and do so with the enthusiasm of a bucket of ice. The commentators actually made me feel knowledgeable all night, Michael Bennett played really well, am I right people? Apart from the commentary, the whole night seemed rather odd. There were at least a thousand hand balls, every player should have received at least a yellow card and the referees didn’t get nearly enough abuse.

Then came the half time show. Where to even begin. It should be mentioned that after Beyonce killed it a couple years ago nobody will ever look quite as good. To be fair to Katy Perry, she gave it a pretty good go. There was a huge lion thing that she roared in and then Lenny Kravitz popped up randomly. It was all sort of surreal. The actual production of the show was incredible, ending with Katy Perry flying through the stadium like, well, a firework. Oh, I completely forgot to mention Missy Elliot. Well done Missy Elliot on coming along and giving Katy Perry enough time to change her outfit and attach herself to the flying pole. The best part of Missy’s performance? The fact that she only has about 3 songs so by the end you had yourself thinking ‘oh, Missy Elliot has quite a few good songs’. Incorrect, she played them all and has nothing more to offer. Do you know what we could have had to replace Missy Elliot to allow Katy Perry to get changed? More commercials.

Now I know that this is a sensitive subject for many people but it needs to be said. It’s a sad sad consumerist world that we live in where the part millions look forward to most is the adverts (I am a slight hypocrite, the John Lewis adverts are magical). Advert breaks should be reserved for going to the toilet, getting more beer or checking Twitter, not watching the TV. If I have to hear anyone else say ‘the adverts are the best part’ I’m going to chop my ears off. Saying the adverts are the best part clearly shows to me you have no interest in Football whatsoever and are only here for the dogs and Pierce Brosnan. It would be like going to the cinema and saying ‘the best part of that movie was the hilarious trailer we saw at the start’. You wouldn’t do it at the cinema, so don’t do it when it comes to sports.

In the end, it was an incredibly tense game won by a dodgy call from the coach (that’s because the commentators said so). The Seahawks should have given the ball to that guy who doesn’t like to do interviews and then they would have won. Maybe then he would have done an interview, who knows. The night went surprisingly quickly and despite only about 40 minutes of actual football being played, the 4 hours I spent watching were relatively enjoyable.

 

WORDS BY MATT GIBSON