This internetwebbythingymajiggy has certainly changed how we follow our teams and now with super fast broadband growing its changing even more. What it was like when I started watching /supporting in 1982 seems like a lifetime away and not just a lifetime but a world back in the dark ages.
In 1982 when I first started watching in the strike season( if my alcohol damaged brain can remembers correctly) it was a case of trying to stay in and make excuses to the girlfriend not to see her so I could see the 30 second (more like 15 ) highlights of the previous weeks game. You didn't even get a newspaper score in them there days and it would kill me not knowing.
My memory then goes back to "THE DRIVE " and thinking how the heck do we find this score ? It was on the Sunday afternoon that someone (no idea who) showed me one line in the Sunday paper and it said the game was on the army/navy/air force USA Radio channel. I wrote the link down and my late pops and myself got 3 or 4 radios out and twiddled until we found it.(I never found it again after that day) .Alls I recall is a crackly and fady commentary, we were in heaven .I recollect writing every play down on a piece of paper for someone at school/college (maybe) so they could get the score and a gist of how it went.... the rest is in Elway Folklore.
Then we advanced to video recorders ,now they may a junk tip object now but way back when, they where like a gift from God ,we now got highlights the night after and they got recorded and then we got the Superbowl on live TV over here in Blighty.
THE DRIVE .
I will log my Superbowl stories on another blog but for now its an overall view. Sky then had a live game and c4 or 5? had the highlights show. We had dial up Internet with the blue bar filling up and there i found the mane and joined and got a bigger hit for my bronco addiction.I went to America and saw my first live game at mile high v panthers and we won a nail biter and it was tarred by my dad not being alive long enough to join me.
Now the overseas fans not only has the website for updates but blogs,apps and twitter has made it up to the second news. We get 2 games on a Sunday and then theres the buzz of streaming** and we know its wrong but every overseas fan spends many a stupid o clock hour trying to find a link and we don't care if its in English or Chinese as long as we get a fix of our team. NFL do a package but its a costly price and if it was less pricey they would sell more tickets sold.
Its a strange world being an overseas fan of a less "popular" sport and you do get ridiculed but you don't care. I'm as passionate as any fan in the world but I have learnt so much off fans who go to Bronco games week in week out and I made some lifelong friends when I attended.
Late nights, lack of sleep ,dodgy pictures and Internet forums ...THE INGREDIENTS OF THE OVERSEAS FAN.
** DISCLAIMER( I am not advocating or encouraging people to use illegal streaming ,I'm just saying)
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