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The
start of my Seahawks career will always be connected with Chinese food.
In 1984 I was attending a provincial British University. Sunday's were a
desert of entertainment, there was quite literally, nothing to do but my
housemates and I had found an oasis.
At 5:30pm we would drive to the local Chinese restaurant to purchase
takeaway food and by 6:00pm we would be in position in front of the TV to
watch the bright multi-coloured Channel 4 logo.
It normally just faded away into the next programme but at 6:00pm on a
Sunday it changed into a snorting image of an NFL player and launched the
opening credits of our new found desire, 'American' Football.
From those early days whilst devouring Chinese food I remember 3 names above
all others. Gary Hogeboom, John Riggins and Steve Largent, a quarterback, a
running back and a receiver.
How I first settled on the Seahawks as my team is lost in the depths of a
chicken chow mein. Whether it was the flash of a silver helmet, the noise of
the Kingdome, the Raider Busters shirts or a particularly brilliant Largent
reception I cannot recall but I was a Seahawk and that was that.
To prove how far my new obsession had gone I caused some consternation later
that year at my sisters Christmas party as I insisted on crouching in the
corner watching the highlights of the Seahawks beating the Raiders in the
play offs.
It might have been lost in the noise of the ongoing party but I'm fairly
sure that I did not hear any announcement that this was going to be the last
play-off game the Seahawks would win in the next 20 odd years.
Odd years? If life as a Seahawk fan has never been easy, I can assure you
that life as a displaced Seahawk fan has been tough in the extreme.
The waiting for news of the results was the worst. In the 1990's the
quickest way was the 'Teletext' service, which used to have the results
after I went to bed on a Sunday but before I got up on a Monday.
It occurred to me one Sunday that I didn't know what time they provided the
update. In retrospect I concede that, with work in the morning, staying up
all night to find out was not the best way of discovering that it was
shortly before dawn.
By 1999 I was almost partying with the artist formerly known as Prince as I
found the Internet and a way of not only finding out the score but keeping
up with the game as it was in progress.
In truth I preferred to watch Sky's live game rather than be stuck at a
computer but the almost instant knowledge was if nothing else, a relief
after years of waiting,
One thing to be clear about is that I was certain that I was the only
Seahawk fan in the UK so I never progressed far beyond seahawks.com and
nfl.com.
I had actually done the occasional search for 'UK Seahawks' or something
similar and had always drawn a complete blank.
Then in late 2003 as the Seahawks clawed their way into the play offs I
found the seahawksal.com website which was interesting simply to gauge the
fan reactions to the games, three of which were broadcast live in the UK.
After the defeat by the Packers I hung around long enough to see a message
from Matt Cheesman with the title 'Calling all UK Seahawks'.
Here was some crazy guy who was not only a UK Seahawk but who had set up a
UK Yahoo group to draw us together and it was 'us' because there were about
15 members already.
It was a new dawn for me because, deprived of anyone to discuss things with
I rarely bothered with the off-season news coverage but amazingly here was a
group in the UK doing just that with an ever-increasing number of members.
By September we had a website up and running and we managed to start a match
day chat room whilst we listened to live radio coverage and instant updates
from nfl.com.
Call me old fashioned or just plain old but I'd never been in a chat room
before. I admit I was a little wary but it worked!
What we had was the closest we could get to supporting the Hawks in person
with a crowd type environment around us and it was fantastic. We even
managed to get several mentions on the live UK NFL programming.
Just to put this in some sort of perspective, the Seahawks are far from
being the coolest NFL team to support in the UK but in 18 months we have
become the biggest and best organised group of ANY fans over here. That, I
think, is quite an achievement.
Andrew Robinson
October
2005
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