Britain Is Going for Football in a Big Way

Three years ago, few British sports fans could tell a tight end from a touchdown.

But the land of cricket and soccer has since been gripped by football fever, and with Super Bowl XX in New Orleans today, it is reaching a peak.

In pubs and subways, British gridiron buffs confidently rattle off names such as Walter Payton and The Refrigerator, and argue favorite plays from televised National Football League games.

Recorded game highlights attract more than four million television viewers and some 200 home-grown teams, including the Heathrow Jets, Greenwich Rams and Dunstable Cowboys, now play the game. With plans under way for major sponsorship, Britain could soon get its very own national league.

NFL interest is also growing in Italy, where games are televised on privately owned stations and there is a small semi-professional league. A cult following is said to be springing up in France and Spain.

Nowhere, however, is the enthusiasm as great as it is in Britain.

In the build-up to the Jan. 26 Super Bowl, national newspapers have begun carrying regular game reports, plus player and team profiles.

Radio stations, even the tradition-minded British Broadcasting Co.’s Radio 4, give results of important NFL games in their sports bulletins.

And on Monday mornings, excited fans busily make phone calls seeking scores of the previous night’s pro games across the Atlantic.

Magazines like “Quarterback,” “Touchdown” and “Gridiron UK” feed the growing British appetite for football, detailing NFL developments and offering package deals to the States for big games.

Although soccer and cricket still attract far bigger crowds than football, thousands of fans have begun switching loyalties.

“If I had the choice of watching pro football or soccer on TV, I’d probably choose football,” said 33-year-old Jonathan Massey.

“I hate to say that, because I was brought up on soccer. But the way they package gridiron here is so exciting, so zappy. Soccer just doesn’t deliver the goods any more.”

Massey, who works for an international auction house, knows his football.

‘I like the Green Bay Packers’ running backs and Joe Montana of the San Francisco 49ers, and I’m thrilled New England got to the Super Bowl,” he said with the assurance of a seasoned armchair quarterback.

For the fourth straight year, Channel 4 will televise the entire Super Bowl live, this time from the Louisiana Superdome.

The network, whose purpose is to serve minority interests, has a slick, 75-minute Sunday night show called American Football and its viewers have quadrupled to 4.2 million in four years.

The all-action show, featuring exciting graphics and lively music, is now the station’s fourth most popular program.

The host is Nicky Horne, a diminutive British disc jockey who says he knew virtually nothing about the sport when the show began in November 1982.

Across the Atlantic, John Smith, a former New England Patriots’ kicker and one of the few Britons to play pro football in the United States, helps Horne round up the matches from different game sites.

Smith, who played for the Patriots from 1974 until 1983, took over last season from Miles Aitken, an American who left to help cover basketball, his No. 1. sport, for Channel 4.

The fusion of Horne’s musical background and Smith’s 16 years of playing experience has proved a huge success. At least twice a season, the pair repeat the rules of football for prospective converts.

“We wanted a layman and an expert talking in a conversational, informal, unpatronizing way,” said Derek Brandon, the show’s creator and producer.

“We wanted to do away with the traditional sports presenter in blazer and tie, leaning on a desk next to a useless telephone and a jug of water. We wanted to make it entertainment,” he said.

“All the viewers started on the same footing--men, women, children and old people--and there was no inbred jargon, like there is in cricket. But what has amazed me is the way the sport is now part of our public consciousness,” Brandon, 35, said in an interview.

The advertising industry is cashing in, too, using football language to promote products in TV commercials. “It’s the only cereal for your super bowl,” chirps one slogan.

“It does not surprise me that the advertisers know what the American football terms mean, but what is astonishing is that they are confident the public understands, too,” Brandon said.

British teams are split, haphazardly, into different leagues, including the British American Football League and the American Football League (UK), both of which have their own championship games.

Attendance is still relatively sparse, averaging about 1,000 people a match, and playing ability poor by American standards. In one game, for example, the Brighton B52’s were bombed 76-0 by the visiting City College of San Francisco team.

A big boost is in sight, however, with the announcement last month by the English subsidiary of Anheuser-Busch Inc., the U.S. brewer, of a $360,000 sponsorship during the next three years.

At least 60 teams already have signed up for the so-called Budweiser League, which starts April 27 and climaxes with the Budweiser Bowl on Aug. 25.

The money will enable the league to set up a professional organization with a full-time commissioner. Dan Marino, the Miami Dolphins’ quarterback, has agreed to help coach aspiring British players.

Folks at NFL headquarters in New York City, are, no doubt, delighted by the British interest in the game.

“We feel the continued growth of football by games and by what is happening on TV further extends the area of interest in the NFL,” said Val Pinchbeck Jr., NFL director of broadcasting.

“We’re elated that we’ve had the interest factor grow to 6 million who stay up to watch the Super Bowl,” he said.

Vinchbeck said the NFL was exploring the possibility of playing a game in London in August, but that plans were not definite.