Giants vs. Dolphins... in London?

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|| SportsShooter.com: News Item: Posted 2007-11-05

Giants vs. Dolphins... in London?
Thomas E. Witte traveled to England to photograph a regular season NFL game at Wembley.

By Thomas E. Witte

Photo by Thomas E. Witte / Getty Images

Fullback Reagan Mauia #45 of the Miami Dolphins loses the ball after being hit by linebacker Kawika Mitchell #55 of the New York Giants at Wembley Stadim on October 28, 2007 in London, England.

Friend: "London? Like London, England?"

Me: "No goofy, London, Kentucky."

That was what almost everyone asked me when I told them where I was shooting last weekend. "I didn't realize England had that many NFL fans." Well, let me assure you, they exist and that's what made this game different than nearly any other game I've ever photographed.

Things started out on the wrong foot when I couldn't check my case at Cincinnati. Maybe rules have changed recently but I was told 70 pounds was the maximum weight per item, which is odd, because I have receipts from a recent trip to Germany where I paid overage fees up to 100 pounds. The "heavy" tag even says 100 pounds or more has to go as cargo. Alas, I just divvied up the gear among my cloths bag and laptop satchel.

The next goof came when I heard my name called over Heathrow's public address system in the baggage claim area. A million things went through my head - both good and bad - but it was Virgin Atlantic wanting to tell me that one of my bags didn't arrive. Normally I would have been impressed that the airline already knew they lost my bag, but any notion of an "oh cool" factor went away when I found out they lost my Pelican case which possessed the 400, 600 and all my other lenses.

OK, now call me crazy but I seem to recall several stories about planes being delayed and flights cancelled because luggage was on a plane that it's owner wasn't or vice versa... Essentially they wanted everything kept together for security reasons... You'd think that a gigantic 70 pound case being separated from its owner would have rose quite the stink, but alas, that's why TSA is a joke. It eventually did arrive so a major crisis was averted.

As for the game itself, it didn't really occur to me how different this game was going to be until I walked out of Wembley Park Station and was greeted by an absolutely appalling sight; a woman in a Cleveland Browns jersey holding hands with a guy in a Cincinnati Bengals jersey. I shook my head and wished bad things on their future children, mostly that they didn't reproduce or if they did that they'd have an anus on their forehead. Two seconds later it hit me; "Wait... I'm at a Giants/Dolphins game" and turned back around for a double take. There they were hanging out with four friends dressed in Vikings, Redskins, Raiders and Jets jerseys.

Photo by Thomas E. Witte / Getty Images

NFL fans of all shape and size file their way from Wembley Park Station to Wembley Stadium for the first ever regular season NFL game held outside of North America October 28, 2007 in London, England.

"Hmm, maybe they're just an anomaly." Nope, not so much. It turns out this game wasn't going to be attended by just British Giants and Dolphin fans, it was going to be a capacity crowd of NFL fans in general. Jersey's for every team were represented as well as helmets and a Green Bay cheese head. Which in itself wouldn't be that odd to see, but outside Wembley? I mean c'mon, how cool is this?

Speaking of sights, Wembley itself is one to behold. Ninety thousand seats (reconfigured to 81,000 for the game to offer better sight lines for the fans.), super clean backgrounds and lights bright enough to use a 600 f/4 (getting about 1/800th at f/4 at 1000 iso) which is good because I needed it. (I'll explain that in a bit.) Comparably you'd think it would be a boring stadium, like Ford Field. It has two giant Jumbotrons in the endzones two very small game clocks on the fifty and two small stats boards on opposite corners. In the States we have those tacky digital banners wrapping around the stadium always flashing and blinking something about Dunkin Donuts. While it was uber clean, it was also tough getting used to wear to look to see what down we were on, but that's a tiny gripe/whine.

I'll be honest, leading up to the game I felt sort of guilty. The fans were really looking forward to this game. 81,000 tickets sold out in 90 minutes when they went on sale and I believe there were 500,000 ticket requests for the game. But the Dolphins and Giants? I mean come on. At least give them Oakland, they've at least won a game this year. So I was skeptical about how it would be received since we weren't really giving them our A game. Well, they loved it. When is the last time you saw the crowd do a really good wave with two minutes to go in the game? When is the last time you heard them "oo" and "ah" a sloppy rush for a first down? The fans genuinely enjoyed it. The photographers and security personnel on the other hand were a bit peeved. "Why do they keep stopping and stand around?" "Why is the last two minutes of the half taking 15 minutes?" I did my best to explain what was going on and they more or less understood but they still thought it was kind of boring. (It's funny, American's think soccer is boring because it's low scoring. The British think football is boring because there is so much dead time. Personally, I side with them, especially when the venue doesn't play music or do fan interviews during time outs... Which they didn't.)

I can't possibly say enough good things about the stadium and the workers. From the media steward who walked around the entire stadium with me answering any questions or concerns, to the liaison who giggled every time I said "field" "subway" or "elevator", to the guard who insisted he help me carry my 92 pound Pelican case up three flights of steps. Collectively they are the most generous staff I've ever had the pleasure to work with which is good, because it balanced out all the bad stuff.

Photo by Thomas E. Witte / Getty Images

The hallowed ground of Wembley Stadium was a difficult place to shoot as photographers had to shoot far away from the sidelines and behind advertising panels on October 28, 2007 in London, England.

NFL shooters need to start praying that the league doesn't adopt some of the photo restrictions we had there. Not being allowed to go up in to the stands to shoot overhead shots was one thing, but being forced to shoot the game from about FORTY FEET from our normal yellow line is another. As anyone knows, an American Football field is much narrower and slightly longer than a Football (soccer) field. So the field was repainted but the revolving ad signs were kept in place, which under Wembley rules, we had to be behind. Normally that would be fine, I mean after all, the local shooters shoot soccer matches from that distance. But with soccer you don't have the line crew, ball boys, in house TV crews and of course the bench area inside the signage. We essentially had to pile up and shoot the entire game from behind the endzone, which also was about 10 feet away from our normal yellow line. It was ironic really how the ground staff even painted the TV and still photographers' lines on the field but we couldn't go near it. After talking myself into lugging my 600 over there, then wanting to kick my own butt for all the crap I had to deal with at the airport and the tube, it paid off.

The real excitement came on the trip back to Heathrow. I took a taxi a mile or so to Paddington to catch a train to the airport and I immediately didn't feel comfortable with my driver. He was in a Toyota minivan with no meter or signage. "Well, the hotel set me up with him, maybe it's a private service." I thought. On top of that, he wouldn't stop text messaging. I asked him sort of sternly to please stop after we nearly rear ended a delivery van but he said he was almost done. One block later, WHAM, right in to the back of the same van at about 50 MPH. I saw it coming so I went limp and leaned into the seat in front of me but the driver was taken off guard and was partially ejected through the windshield. After making sure he was alert and more or less okay (all things considered) I pulled out my cases and flagged down another taxi. Lesson 1: Only get in a taxi you trust. Lesson 2: Make sure your health insurance covers you on foreign soil.

Photo by Thomas E. Witte / Getty Images

Thomas E. Witte shooting the Giants vs. Dolphins game in London.

So what's the point of this whole diatribe anyway? Well, if anything caught your eye, it should have been the part about our restrictions. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is really pushing for more regular season games to be played outside of the United States, including a Superbowl. I'm fine with that providing they allow us to shoot from our normal positions. I spoke with a lot of the European photographers who used to shoot NFL Europe games and they verified that they normally shot from their soccer positions as we did at Wembley. If any Superbowl is held at a soccer venue, keep this in mind. Domestically though, I think we need to be more concerned about the networks seeing how clean the sidelines were during this game and deciding to move us back another 10 feet again. I heard from several people (even photographers) that the sidelines looked extremely clean/empty.

Naturally most venues like FedEx Field can't be reconfigured this way. Moving us back even 20 feet would put us in the mezzanine level. But then again, stranger things have happened. Take the Browns and Bengals fans holding hands for example.

P.S. If you like shooting football in the rain on real grass, go to London. It made Seattle look like Dubai.

(Thomas E. Witte has been a full time freelance photographer based in the Greater Cincinnati area and Midwest for the past ten years. His clients range from Sports Illustrated to Business Week to Getty Images. )

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