The Cami de Cavalls – A Walk around the History of Menorca: A Photo Essay

 What is your idea of a dream holiday? For my wife and I, it was to walk the Cami de Cavalls, a long-distance footpath that circumnavigates the island of Menorca, in the Balearic Isles. It is 115 miles long, but with detours and extras, we walked a total of 130 miles in 13 days in April 2018. We did not hump tent and pegs, however - we booked the holiday with a firm that arranged the itinerary and accommodation, and transported our luggage (and us if necessary), from stage to stage. As it was out of season, we stayed in a range of places, from naff through comfortable to jaw-droppingly luxurious. Menorca is a beautiful island, with many types of scenery, fine bird-watching and 3,000 years of historical remains to explore. In this article, I will use a selection of my holiday snaps to tell the story of our walk, and the (natural) history of the island. Perhaps it will encourage you to don your walking boots and explore Menorca for yourselves. And if not…well, we walked around Menorca so you don’t have to. 

 

 The Cami de Cavalls is divided into twenty stages. It is 115 miles in total. The circumnavigation begins in Menorca's capital Mahon (Mao in Catalan) in the east of the island and proceeds anticlockwise around the wind-swept north to Ciutadella, its second city on the west coast, then hugs the southern coast, where most of the modern tourist-focused urbanisations are sited and back to Mahon.

Our itinerary (complete with annotations) took us around the whole of the Cami de Cavalls in thirteen days. As the north of the island is relatively unpopulated (and it was out of the holiday season, which begins promptly on 1st May), we spent up to three nights in some hotels, being taken by minibus to and from the start and finish points of the day's walk. In the south, we could more or less walk from hotel to hotel.

 

 Our trip began in Mahon (Mao), the capital of Menorca since the eighteenth century. Like most Mediterranean islands, Menorca has had a succession of rulers: Carthaginians, Romans, Byzantines, Moors, Andalusians, British, French (briefly) and finally Spanish. The British ruled Menorca from 1713 to 1802, with a couple of breaks during European wars when it was briefly captured by France. It was the British who moved the capital from Ciutadella to Mahon. The attraction was the harbour (apparently the largest deep water harbour in the world, after Pearl Harbour).

 

Mahon remains a small town, sleepy out of season - and during the siesta hours, which the locals take very seriously. 

 The British influence can still be seen in the old town, where many buildings retain sash windows. Menorca was captured from the British by France in 1756, during the Seven Years War, to public outrage in Britain. Admiral John Byng, whose role it was to defend the island was court martialled and executed by firing squad, leading to Voltaire's lugubrious comment that in Britain, 'it is good to kill an admiral from time to time, in order to encourage the others’. Britain regained control of Menorca in 1763.

 

 The first day's walking was the only one under cloudy skies. The Cami de Cavalls is very well marked, with posts every twenty yards or so and regular distance signs. We passed through many Menorcan gates, made to a traditional design out of wild olive wood. Menorca is not a mountainous island, but the path was almost continually undulating, up onto cliffs and down to coves and bays, so we put in many yards of ascent over its course.

 Cami de Cavalls means 'Way of the Horses', and the modern footpath is based on a Medieval route that was part of the island's defenses against invasion and piracy. Menorquin pedigree horses are superb creatures that play in role in the island's traditional festivals.

 

 

The north of Menorca is not intensively farmed and in spring, the fields are filled by swathes of wild flowers.

 

Flowers are particularly prevalent near the path itself, due to years of fertilisation by passing horses.

We also passed many traditional Menorcan wells.

The north of the island is made of strata of ancient sandstones, and can be battered by northern winds. These contribute to the formation of 'socarells', low spiky bushes that look like hedgehogs.

The main point of interest during the first day was Parc Natural de s'Albufera des Grau, an extensive wild bird reserve. Unfortunately it was the wrong time of the year to see the flocks of waterfowl that use it, but we saw many species of birds as the walk went on.

Menorca is scattered with military remains, reflecting its place in a succession of European conflicts. This is Torre de la Mesquita, built by the British during the Napoleonic Wars.

 

Evidence of past industry in the north of Menorca. The Salines de Mongoira are former salt workings...

...They now abound with birdlife, with black-winged stilts a particular feature.

 

Basilia des Cap des Port is the remains of a 6th century Christian chapel.

Another 19th century saltpans, Salinas de la Conceptio, is currently being restored.

Sanisera Roman fort dates from the 2nd century B.C. At that time, there was a considerable Roman town in the area, following the Roman conquest of Menorca in 123 B.C.

Platja de Cavalleria is the most picturesque beach in the north of Menorca.

Another feature of Menorca are these dry-stone animal shelters, dating from the 19th century or earlier. We passed many in the north and west of the island

Following a day of steep ascents and descents...

...we spent the night at Son Felipe, a working farm that also offered luxury accommodation. I'm sure we were only booked there as it was out of season!

The owners of the farm also bred Minorquin horses.

Dragging ourselves back onto the path, we passed more evidence of 19th century industry, in the form of an abandoned copper mine shaft.

Many of Menorca's bays have bunkers built into the cliffs, as here at Cala d'Algerains. They date from the Spanish civil war in the 1930s. During the war, Menorca was staunchly Republican, and the islanders, living under constant expectation of invasion by Franco's Nationalist forces, built these bunkers as means of civil defense. In the event, Menorca was not invaded until 1939, and major loss of life was averted by the British brokering the island's surrender, which took place on board H.M.S. Devonshire, in Mahon harbour. 

 

The tourist industry developed later on Menorca than on the other Balearic islands, and it is said that following the civil war, Franco starved the island of state funds for tourism as punishment for the island's support of the Republican government. This does, however, contribute to the island's relatively unspoiled appearance.

As well as bunkers, dwellings were built into the cliffs in places, such as these fishermen's huts near the town of Cala Morell...

 

...where we also saw an extensive rock-carved necropolis, used for interments during the 'Talayotic Period' (covered later), from the late Bronze Age, through the Iron Age and finally abandoned around 200 A.D. 

From the north west of the island, and covering the whole of its southern half, the underlying terrain changes from sandstones to hard, more easily workable limestone. The section of the walk from Cala Morell to Ciutadella was relatively flat, but rocky and exposed, with scant vegetation. It is criss-crossed with dry stone walls, with many stone wells and animal shelters. In the past, the land was used for grazing cattle.

 

Port d'en Gill is a photogenic landscape feature.

Ciutadella was Menorca's capital prior to the British occupancy and it has a more Spanish flavour than Mahon. It contains the island's cathedral (in the top left-hand corner of this picture), and landowners' town houses and monasteries that date back to the 17th century or earlier.

The Castell de San Nicholau is a 17th century fortress built to protect the harbour.

On a Sunday evening, the town's 19th century market is a meeting place for locals.

Life in Ciutadella is pants.

The southern coast of Menorca is sheltered from the prevailing winds and has a higher proportion of resorts, bathing beaches and urbanisations. We walked through several of the latter, and did not enjoy the monotony of the rows of modern, whitewashed apartments and the main streets filled with cheap restaurants, that out of season looked like abandoned film sets. Out of the way bays such as Cala Macarella were more appealing...

...and were well patronised by locals.

As tortoise owners, we were thrilled to see a wild tortoise by the side of the path.

The south of the island is the setting for many of Menorca's prehistoric sites, particularly those from the so-called 'Talyotic culture' that prevailed from the late Bronze Age (around 1000 B.C.) to the time of the Roman occupation in 123 B.C. The name derives from the 'Talyots' that are dotted around the island, such as this one at Binicodrell (you can just see another on the horizon on the right hand side of the picture). Talyots are truncated, dry-stone towers, built to a range of styles between 900 and 700 B.C. Their specific purposes are unknown, but they were likely built to provide a focus for a local community and may have reflected local power structures.

Later in the Iron Age, small 'villages' of dwellings and other dry-stone buildings were established. One of the best preserved is at Torre d'en Calmes. In addition to Talyots, visitors can explore round houses such as this one, with rooms surrounding a central courtyard. The Necropolis at Cala Morell, that we visited earlier in the walk, was in use during the Talyotic period.

Dwellings are often accompanied by 'hypostyle halls' with stone roofs, that were likely used for storage.

 

Another feature is the 'Taula Enclosure', a ritual building comprising a circular space with a 'Taula' in the centre. Originally the large horizontal stone would have been placed on top of the standing stone...

 

...like this restored example, that we saw further along the walk at Binisafullet.

The final day's walking took us along the flat south-eastern coast...

...through the peaceful former fishing village of Alcalter...

...past the last fortress of the walk, Fort Marlborough (18th century British, and best seen from the air)...

..and back to Mahon, as sleepy as we left it.

By coincidence there was a concert in Mahon the day after our return by American jazz bassist Kyle Eastwood...

 

...does he look at all familiar? Yes, he's son of Clint!

We walked round that!

From XX to LV: Thirty-five Years as a British NFL Fan

 

Spectator sports exist to provide a distraction from real life. For committed fans, however, they are real life. I have written previously about my love of cricket, but these days cricket takes second place in my affections to American football, specifically the National Football League (NFL). In this article I will reflect on my years of following the NFL from the wilds of Lancashire, England, starting in the 1980s and still going strong in COVID-ridden 2021.

 

Like many British fans, my interest began after Channel 4 began broadcasting highlights of the NFL in 1982. For some reason, the game caught my imagination, despite being a soft-hearted liberal who was sceptical of all things American. At first, I understood very little of what I was watching. In principle, American football is a simple game, not too dissimilar to Rugby League, with a straightforward scoring system. In practice, everything about the NFL is complex. Why does a game with eleven players a side need a playing squad of 53? Why, when a game is timed to last for one hour, does it actually take upwards of three hours to complete? Why, as happened this year, does a team who won seven and lost nine games (Washington) get to the playoffs, while a team who won ten games and lost six (Miami) does not? Why does the most popular game in America, the spiritual home of free-market capitalism, seem on the surface to be a hotbed of socialism? At first, these and many other questions were mysterious to me. Watching a game, it seemed that the players scattered around the field like demented, armoured chess pieces, and the commentators analysing plays could have been discussing quadratic equations (it didn’t help that I was watching on a small, portable black-and-white television). Today, I have a decent knowledge of the sport. I can follow a game play-by-play and broadly understand what has happened and why. I know basic tactics and strategy and recognise the many penalties. I am as opinionated as any armchair Head Coach and could hold a long pub discussion about the game if the pubs were open and I knew anyone who shared my obsession. But it has taken me thirty-five years to get to this point, watching many TV games; reading several key books about the sport (listed at the end of this article) and trawling the NFL website. And despite never having visited America, I have had the thrill of watching NFL games live, when the sport has visited London’s Wembley stadium.

My early education in the NFL was assisted by Channel 4's American Football Annual. This is the 1986 edition, chronicling the year that the Chicago Bears won Superbowl XX

 

Approaching Wembley Stadium for my first live NFL game in 2014. The Cowboys won, 31-17

Sports evolve slowly and almost imperceptibly, like the design of a marmite jar. My experience of the NFL to date is bookended by two Superbowls: Superbowl XX, which concluded the 1985 season and Superbowl LV, which ended the benighted 2020 season (Superbowls have always had the distinction of Roman numerals). Watching both games again (they can be viewed, without adverts or breaks in play, on Youtube), they are clearly the same sport. But much has changed in the NFL in the past thirty-five years, partly reflecting changes in American society. This continues the NFL’s development from its foundation just over 100 years ago. For a start, there are four more teams in the NFL now than there were in 1985, and six teams have moved cities; one twice and another three times. And if anything, the league has become more ‘socialist’, not less.

 

I am of course using the term ‘socialist’ advisedly. There is nothing socialist about the NFL. It is a classic example of American monopoly capitalism; as monolithic a business as McDonalds or Amazon. Over the years it has achieved the premier position in American sport, dwarfing baseball in popularity and wealth. But one way it has maintained its appeal has been by ensuring a level playing field within the league, with steps taken to minimise the risk of a few rich teams becoming dominant, reflecting the mantra that “the league is only as strong as its weakest member”. Traditionally, this was done through the annual ‘draft’, when the best college players were selected by NFL teams. The draft is carried out in reverse order of achievement, with the season’s worst-placed team choosing first in each round of the draft, and the Superbowl champion choosing last. Then, the poorer teams are given an easier schedule of games in the next season than the better teams, so that theoretically, every team (or franchise, as the NFL calls them) has as good a chance to get to the Superbowl as any other.

 

In 1985, NFL players were effectively vassals of their franchises. They could only leave to join another team with permission, even at the end of their contracts, while their tem could trade them away, or cut them at any time. Players today can still be traded or cut, but in the late 1980s, following a players’ strike and legal action, the league introduced ‘free agency’, whereby a player at the end of their contract could offer themselves to any other team. An inevitable consequence of free agency was that the best players could demand inflated salaries, threatening the league’s level playing field. In response, the NFL introduced a salary cap, whereby a team could not offer more than a fixed amount in total player salaries. The league’s internal level playing field was thereby preserved.

 

Superbowl XX was played between the Chicago Bears and the New England Patriots. That year, the Bears were firm favourites, having reached the playoffs with a 15-1 record, while the Patriots’ success was unexpected. The Superbowl went according to form, with Chicago dominating, the final score 46-10. But since then, the Bears have only been to one further Superbowl, which they lost, while since 2001, the Patriots have made a mockery of the NFL’s level playing field, reaching the Superbowl nine times and winning six – an unprecedented amount of success. We will consider this freakish dominance later.

 

How Channel 4's American Football Annual described Superbowl XX

By Superbowl XX I had moved on from my portable black and white TV and was able to watch the game live on a decent telly. I continued to follow the NFL on Channel 4 for many years. Presenters came and went, but best of all was the Canadian former college tight-end and polymath Mike Carlson. His weekly round-ups were particular pleasures, peppered with running jokes (Pittsburgh's Hines Ward was 'so good, they named the stadium after him' - Pittsburgh played at Heinz Field - while the Rams Torry Holt was 'the Tory you can support'. Once, he sang his weekly roundup. Channel 4 no longer shows the NFL, but Mike can still be seen as part of the BBC's Superbowl presenting team. Today, Sky Sports shows up to six full games per week and the NFL was the reason I finally caved in and invested in a satellite dish.

Sky Sports commentators Neil Reynolds and Shaun Gayle analyse a play while the Dallas Cheerleaders entertain the crowd. Shaun Gayle was a member of Chicago's Superbowl XX-winning side

The level of interest in the NFL in the UK has been such that the league has frequently crossed the Atlantic and played games in Britain. In August 1986, the Superbowl XX champion Chicago Bears played a pre-season (friendly) game at Wembley Stadium and other such games were played in the UK subsequently. For some years, an offshoot league known as NFL Europe was based in several European cities, including London and Edinburgh. But the real dream was to bring actual NFL games to the UK, and since 2007 up to four NFL games per year have been played in London, before COVID prevented the planned games from taking place in 2020. Most, if not all have been sell-outs and it is not impossible that an NFL franchise may be based in the UK one day. I have made the pilgrimage to Wembley three times, as the photographs accompanying this article will testify.

 

Dallas limber up prior to their Wembley game against Jacksonville in November 2014

Suggs of the reggae group Madness entertains the crowd in the build-up to the game between the Detroit Lions and the Kansas City Chiefs at Wembley in 2015

The excitement mounts as Kansas takes the field. They beat Detroit 46-10

The NFL does not, of course, exist in a vacuum. Professional players hone their craft in College football, and before that in High Schools. Games between the leading College teams can attract as many spectators, and as much television coverage, as NFL games, and even High School teams have a local standing that school sports teams in the UK can only dream about. The culture of football, for good or ill, is inculcated into players from their school days. A classic account of the culture and mores of High School football in the 1980s is H. G. Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, in which the author followed a successful High School team for a season in Odessa, a blue-collar, staunchly conservative oil town in Texas. As well as being a gripping account of the Permian Panthers’ struggle to reach the Texas State final, and the lives of some of the seventeen and eighteen-year-old players, the book paints a vivid picture of small-town America at the time of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Senior.

 

The success of the Panthers was not just an imperative for the school, but for the whole town. At the time, Odessa had a population of around 100,000, and the attendance at the weekly friday night football games was around 15,000 (in comparison, Preston, Lancashire has a similar population, and its Championship level soccer team, Preston North End, had an average attendance in 2019 of 13,000). Adults shamelessly lived their lives through their sons’ football achievements. The school, Permian High, threw every possible resource into the football team, to the detriment of its academic achievement – it had lower average grades than many similar schools, but thought nothing of spending thousands of dollars to charter planes to take the football team to away matches. The players, mostly white and middle-class, were treated as cannon fodder. Winning was all-important, and winning in American Football often meant being more violent than your opponents. Boys were encouraged to play through injuries and many readily did so, for one or two years of local fame and for the lucky few, a chance to win a football scholarship to a top sports college. Black players were prized for their athleticism, but subjected to casual racism off the field, including in the classroom, from classmates and teachers.

 

In short, to understand small-town America, and the role of sport in American society in the 1980s, Friday Night Lights is essential reading. What has changed over the thirty years since it was written? Well, Permian High School has lost its status as a leading football school, through a reappraisal of its values and how its resources should be distributed. It is over twenty-five years since the school was last State champion. Attendance at games today is lower, at around 8,000. The town of Odessa has undergone a succession of economic booms and busts, depending on the state of the oil market; prior to being brought to its knees by COVID it had been experiencing an upsurge due to being a centre for fracking. Despite now having a majority Hispanic population, the town voted solidly Republican (i.e. for Donald Trump) in 2016 and 2020, just as it did in the 1980s.

 

In culture and values, the NFL in the 1980s was little different to that of Permian High School. Winning was all, and in a game still largely dominated by running the ball, the way to win was essentially to be more violent than your opponents; to tackle and block harder. Head injuries, including serious concussions, were all part of the sport. In Superbowl XX, Chicago’s Hall of Fame linebacker Mike Singletary suffered a concussion early in the game, but returned to the field after taking just a few minutes to clear his head, drawing approving words from the commentators. In recent years, the downside to this aspect of the game has become tragically apparent, with the realisation that former NFL players have higher than average rates of dementia and other neurological conditions, that can be directly related to a history of head injuries and concussions. The league has taken steps to try to reduce these, with rule changes to outlaw head-to-head contact and independent assessments of head injuries, with players who show neurological symptoms being taken out of games. Time will tell if these measures will reduce rates of dementia as the present generation of players grow older.

 

I stated above that in 1985, the game was largely dominated by running the ball. In terms of tactics and strategy, the history of the NFL has centred on the balance between the run and the pass as ways of progressing the ball. When the NFL was first established, running the ball dominated, as the ball could only be thrown forward under certain circumstances. In 1933, unrestricted forward passes were legalised, and the game began its long road towards today’s pass-dominant approach.

 

As Michael Lewis explains in his great book about College football, The Blind Side, the 1980s was the decade that the balance shifted from the run to the pass. Under Head Coach Bill Walsh, the San Francisco 49ers pioneered the ‘West Coast Offence’, in which offences were dominated by short, well-practiced passing plays, with timing of passes crucial (previously, passes had tended to be long-range speculative throws, often delivered more in hope than expectation of a catch). In consequence, defences put more weight on ‘rushing the passer’, with forceful and athletic Linebackers such as New York Giants’ Lawrence Taylor, who ended Washington’s quarterback Joe Theisman’s career with a particularly violent tackle. Covering the quarterback’s ‘blind side’ became paramount, leading to the importance of the Left Offensive Tackle as the quarterback’s main protector.

Blake Bortles of Jacksonville calls the signals against Dallas. Will the play be a run or a pass?

 

Statistics show the extent that the game has changed over the decades. In the 1985 season, just one quarterback (Miami’s Dan Marino) totalled more than 4,000 yards passing, whereas in 2020, twelve quarterbacks reached that mark. By contrast, sixteen players ran the ball for 1,000 yards in 1985, while nine did so in 2020. The rise of the pass has tended to increase scoring – a drive based on passing takes less long than one with lots of running plays. Another factor that has led to higher scores is the drastically improved efficiency of kickers when attempting field goals, both in their rates of success and the length of kicks that they are able to attempt. The first specialist kicker to reach the NFL Hall of Fame, Jan Stenerud, who played for three teams from 1967 – 1985, had a career success rate of 66.8% in kicking field goals. By contrast, the league’s worst regular kicker in 2020, Dan Bailey of Minnesota, had a success rate of 68.2%, and nine kickers achieved over 90% success.

 

Andrew Luck of the Indianapolis Colts passes against Jacksonville in October 2016 Less one-sided than the previous games I had attended, Jacksonville won 30-27

Cairo Santos kicks a field goal for Kansas City against Detroit at Wembley, October 2015

Another playing change since the 1980s has been the willingness of quarterbacks to run with the ball. Years ago, this was almost unheard of. In the 1950s, Hall of Fame quarterback Norm Van Brocklin supposedly remarked that a quarterback only ran out of sheer terror. By 1985, some quarterbacks were becoming known as runners, notably San Francisco’s Steve Young (in 1985, Chicago’s Jim McMahon rushed for 252 yards, and scored two rushing touchdowns in Superbowl XX). In 2020, Baltimore’s Lamar Jackson was ninth in the overall list of rushers, with 1,005 yards, with three other quarterbacks reaching 500 yards. For several teams, quarterbacks put up a significant portion of their teams’ rushing yards.

 

One quarterback whose fame is not related to his running ability is Tom Brady, for twenty years the leader of the New England Patriots and still in the NFL at the age of 43. The unprecedented success of Brady and the Patriots has been the dominant narrative of the NFL since the millennium.

 

The story of the Patriots would make the writer of Roy of the Rovers blush. In 1985, the Patriots were the hapless underdogs of Superbowl XX. They did not return to the Superbowl until 1996, when they were defeated by the Green Bay Packers in Superbowl XXXI. In 2000, Bill Belichick was appointed as Head Coach, and he drafted Tom Brady in the sixth round, unusually as the fourth quarterback on the roster. While successful as a College player, Brady was not deemed by other teams to be fast or athletic enough to be an NFL quarterback. But after spending the 2000 season as back-up to Drew Bledsoe, favourite of the Patriots’ owner Robert Kraft, Brady took over as starter during 2001, when Bledsoe suffered a horrendous – and near fatal – injury. The Patriots had an 11-5 record in 2001 and next year they became Superbowl champions for the first time. By 2018 the Patriots had been to nine Superbowls and won six.

 

What was behind the Patriots’ unprecedented success? Bill Belichick was a cerebral and ruthlessly single-minded Head Coach, who thought nothing of summarily discarding players whom he felt were past their best, but also had a knack of getting the best out of some players who, like Tom Brady, were not thought up to it by other teams (Wes Welker; Julian Edelman) and others who had a reputation as disruptive influences (Randy Moss). But would he have had such success without Brady, widely regarded as the GOAT (Greatest of All Time) among quarterbacks? Interestingly, despite their twenty-year partnership, Brady and Belichick were not close friends, partly because Belichick never got close to any of his players (it would make it harder to cut them), and partly because as his achievements grew, Brady would challenge aspects of Belichick’s authority. In particular, Brady relied on a personal trainer, Alex Guerrero, whom he credited with keeping him fit enough to play into his forties, and insisted that Guerrero be made part of the Patriots’ staff, against Belichick’s wishes.

 

Patriots fans among the crowd at Wembley in 2014. I do not share their enthusiasm

Along with their success, the Patriots acquired a reputation for sharp practice. Two particular incidents became notorious: 2007’s ‘Spygate’, when Belichick admitted illegally filming an opposing team’s pitchside signals, and 2015’s ‘Deflategate’, when Brady was accused of ordering balls to be deflated to below the league’s required pressure. While underhand tactics had long been a part of the NFL, many teams felt that the Patriots had taken rule bending to a new level.

 

In 2020, aged 43, Brady finally left the Patriots, to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. How would he manage under a new Head Coach? How would New England thrive without their long-standing star quarterback? \Well, the Patriots failed to reach the playoffs for the first time in twelve years, while Brady led the Buccaneers to victory in Superbowl LV. Brady has now gained seven Superbowl rings, while Belichick has only once reached the playoffs (including his previous five-year spell as Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns) with a quarterback other than Tom Brady.

 

The Team that Brady and the Bucs defeated in Superbowl LV was the Kansas City Chiefs, piloted by quarterback Patrick Mahomes. The comparison between Brady and Mahomes is literally between the old and the new. Forty-three year old Brady is a traditional ‘pocket passer’ style of quarterback, who compensates for his relative lack of mobility with passing accuracy and a deep understanding of the game. Mahomes is twenty-five and supremely athletic, making things happen by rushing and scrambling and spectacularly acrobatic passes. And Brady is white, while Mahomes is black.

 

As with America itself, the history of the NFL cannot be understood without reference to race. In its early decades, there were few black players and even fewer black coaches, and blacks were excluded from the league between 1933 and 1946. By the early 1960s, black players were becoming more sought after, but were still very much in a minority. In his fine book about the 1963 Detroit Lions, Paper Lion, George Plimpton noted the double standards employed by white players and coaches. It was around the time when racial integration was becoming an issue in the South, and Plimpton noted that white players and coaches from the South held traditionally racist views when considering integration, but did not apply them to the black players on the team – football ability trumped race in how they regarded individuals.

 

By Superbowl XX, there were many black players in the NFL, but areas of prejudice were still apparent (we noted above the racism that the black players at Permian High endured in the 1980s, as related in Friday Night Lights). In the NFL, there was a lingering view that some positions on the field were not suitable for black players. These were the positions that required the greatest understanding of the game and leadership qualities – Centre, Middle Linebacker and, of course, Quarterback. Black players were under-represented in these positions for many years after they had come to dominate most others.

 

Today, around 70% of NFL players are black and attitudes towards the suitability of blacks for key positions on the field have largely changed. Like Mahomes, many of the new breed of quarterbacks are black. But, just as in American society as a whole, the position of blacks in the NFL is sometimes precarious. In 2016, San Francisco’s black quarterback Colin Kapernick and many other black players protested against racial injustice by sitting or kneeling during the national anthem, drawing the ire of President Donald Trump among others. Kapernick lost his job and has not found another team willing to employ him. The proportion of black coaches, particularly Head Coaches, is low compared to the number of black players. During the 2020 presidential election campaign, Patrick Mahomes was active in encouraging young black people to vote, and while he did not publicly endorse a candidate, it was clear that he was not a Trump supporter (unlike Tom Brady and Bill Belichick).

 

So the NFL, like America as a whole, has its issues and is taking baby steps towards addressing them. The role of women in the NFL is another area of attention, particularly in the light of a stream of incidents of domestic violence involving high-profile NFL players. In Superbowl LV, for the first time a female official, Sarah Thomas, was among the officiating crew, and several teams now employ female coaches on their staffs.

 

Until recently, the main contribution that women made to the NFL was as Cheerleaders. There are now several female TV presenters and commentators, and women are gradually being admitted as coaches and game officials

In the thirty-five years that I have been following the game the NFL has slowly changed and adapted, but for good or ill it remains quintessentially American. As with other sports, American Football has its dark side, but as a spectacle, especially when sitting high in the stands at a packed Wembley stadium watching the razzle dazzle of a real NFL game, it is unbeatable. But which NFL team do I support? In general, one's sporting allegiances are imprinted from an early age, by family or peer influence or simple geography. I have long been condemned by these to supporting Kent County Cricket Club and Crystal Palace Football Club. However, I came to the NFL later in life, with no peer pressures and an imperfect understanding of the geography of the United States. Consequently, I have never adopted a franchise as my own - my perspective on the game matches the NFL's level playing field and I can watch each game as an interested neutral. But I do like it when the Patriots lose.

 

Watching the NFL is a serious business

Recommended Reading

Bissinger H. G. (1990) Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team and a Dream. 

Feinstein J (2004) Next Man Up: A Year behind the Lines in Today's NFL.

Kramer J (1968) Instant Replay: The Green Bay Diary of Jerry Kramer.

Lewis M (2006) The Blind Side.

McCambridge M (2005) America’s Game: The Epic Story of how Pro Football Captured a Nation.

Plimpton G (1964) Paper Lion.