Bears-Cowboys Hoopla Confuses, Amuses British

English reserve melted. Stiff upper lips quivered. Eyes bulged.

Veterans of the brolly and pinstriped-suit brigade working around the American Embassy in fashionable Grosvenor Square had witnessed violent anti-Vietnam demonstrations, silent anti-nuclear vigils and, last week, even a protest by the British Coalition of Black Prostitutes, but they’d seen nothing like this.

Bouncing down the embassy steps as a band played the theme from the television series “Dallas” suddenly came one of the best known collective sex symbols of America: the tooth-glistening, bubbly Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders.

Without missing a beat, the women--attired in blue sweat suits--waded into the small crowd of stunned onlookers and curiosity seekers, striking up small talk.

“What we call a bathroom y’all call a water closet,” beamed one of the cheerleaders named Kim to a startled pair of youths. “What we call an apartment, y’all call a flat. That’s real cute.”

Game Is Sellout

The cheerleaders, along with personalities such as William (The Refrigerator) Perry--a man that one local newspaper exclaimed was the size of two telephone kiosks--have been part of the weeklong buildup for a National Football League exhibition game at London’s Wembley Stadium today between the Super Bowl champion Chicago Bears and the Dallas Cowboys.

The game itself has been sold out for months, with tickets for the best of the 80,000 seats changing hands at black market rates of up to 4 1/2 times face value.

British promoter Jarvis Astaire said money was returned to 20,000 ticket applicants.

At least one British government minister is expected to attend, and Prince Charles was reportedly intrigued by the game, but not enough to give up his Sunday polo.

It is an event that has captured the imagination of this normally low-key city, washed away recent anti-American undercurrents and revealed a mixture of admiration, curiosity and puzzlement about Americans that the English usually prefer to express in less public ways.

“In Park Lane yesterday, while some people were thinking up excuses not to turn up for their jobs, 150 American athletes, numbed by tiredness but disciplined to fight through it, had begun their day already,” wrote Daily Mail feature writer John Edwards in a story marveling at the dedication of the two teams to their training.

“A lot was being said here in the silence about the differences in two countries.”

Problems at Home

Interest in the game has been spurred in part by the glamour and show-biz American approach familiar in all major league sports, but also by the success of televised highlights aired each Sunday evening since 1982.

The game also takes place at a time of declining interest and growing disillusionment in English-style football--or soccer--a game plagued in recent years by frequent rioting, hooliganism and slumping attendence.

“If this were a soccer event, someone would have been hit by a bottle,” reporter Edwards said after one of the numerous pregame events.

Bob Payton, who owns the Chicago Pizza Pie Factory in London and who staged a pregame pep rally Saturday in one of the city’s main squares, recalled the official horror when he first applied for a police permit.

“When we told them we wanted to hold a football pep rally, they thought the place was going to be filled with hooligans,” he said.

In the past few years, several small American football leagues have sprouted in Britain, although the game still remains alien to most Englishmen.

But what the British lack in knowledge of the game, they make up in enthusiasm.

“The only thing I know is that 10 yards make a down, but it’s all very exciting,” noted Wendy Taylor, helping promote the game for the Rogers & Cowan public relations agency.

Some 200 miles north of London in the Yorkshire industrial city of Bradford, Ken Turner, who recently opened a store devoted to selling pro football equipment and souvenirs, admitted that he didn’t know a safety from a shoelace but was still upset about having to miss today’s game.

“My wife’s about to have a baby, so I’ve got to stay home,” he said.

Newspaper Helps Out

For potential fans such as Turner and Taylor, the Daily Express on Saturday offered the following explanation of the game:

“The basic idea is to run at least 10 yards in the right direction cuddling the ball.”

The Dallas cheerleaders also took some explaining.

“There were 36 girls in blue silk track suits waving pom-poms the size of bicycle tires,” noted the Daily Mail. “There was a mould somewhere and they all came out of it.”

Television talk show hosts, equally uncertain about the game’s finer points, concentrated on the enormous size of the athletes and the legends of their equally large appetites.

The prestigious Times of London reported solemnly on the day after the Chicago team arrived: “The 120-strong Bear Party ate their way through 10 types of cereal, yogurt, butter, milk, cheese, sausages, ham and 300 eggs at breakfast yesterday.”

One of the paper’s political columnists invited to a reception for both teams given by U.S. Ambassador Charles H. Price II was also slightly unsure of his ground.

“Usually when I come here, there’s lots of political figures,” he said, clearly puzzled by the company. “Who is it that’s here anyway?”

But the culture shock has worked in both directions.

One of the Dallas cheerleaders in front of the U.S. Embassy blinked hard after learning that the real sporting love of the Englishman she had engaged in conversation was cricket.

After a moment’s silence, her eyes widened.

“Cricket?” she said. “Wowwwww.”