Game 2 Chicago Bears 20-27 Buffalo Bills. Ralph Wilson Stadium

The action continued in the car park as it was “family day” and large inflatable games were popping up around the stadium. The game day buzz was building for kick off so I grabbed my Bears foam hat and put on my Walter Payton jersey and headed to gate 7. It was a bustling crowd and as I got closer to the stadium something strange started to happen, something that took me by complete surprise, and it didn’t happen once but perhaps a dozen times.

“F**k da Bears” was hollered at me from Bill’s fans, from many angles as I waited to go into the historic stadium. There were other people wearing Bears jerseys, who got the odd “Bears suck”, but none of them got the verbal tirade that I was under. I was shocked and intimidated. One or two would then say “nice hat,” after swearing at me and then say F**k da Bears” again. How odd.

All of last year I was the home fan and so I did not really see what it was like for the away fans. Of course I knew this negative attention was because of my rather large Bears foam hat. I thought I would obtain the odd stare or mockery from the home fans, but to have ten people swear at me at the same time was scary. I felt like I was at a soccer game in England!

I made my way yo the front row and saw Scott instantly, as he paints the Bills logo on either sides of his Mohican. He told me to put my Bears foam hat back on.

I was really excited to see Jay Cutler step out onto the field, and I went crazy when he connected to Devin Hester on the first play, even though it was just for a few yards. There was an exchange of punts, before Cutler found Hester again this time for 20 yards. My visions of the Cutler-Hester tandem taking us all the way to the Super Bowl were short lived when two plays later, Cutler under threw the ball and it was intercepted. Neither team moved the ball much in the first quarter with both teams struggling to run the ball. Finally the Bears broke the deadlock with a simple field goal. The Bills began to unpick the Bear’s secondary, and we looked very open on deep pass plays. Thankfully we stopped the TD but the Bills scored an easy fieldgoal to level the score at 3-3 after the first quarter.

Terrell Owens decided he was not going to play because he had apparently hurt his toe (vagina) last week. The crowd were loud early on and it was awesome sitting close to the action. The starters only played the first quarter and in the second quarter the crowd started up a Mexican wave, which made its way around the Ralph at least ten times. It was at this point that the cheerleading squads rotated and Lisa the Buffalo Jill came up to me and gave me a big high five with her pom pom which was very cool.

It was awesome sitting next to Scott during the game, because he is so passionate about his team and it really made me get more into the game. During the second quarter there was some clumsy play from both teams, both giving up fumbles, and the half time score was a meek 6-6. I stood up and chatted with Scott, until I realized that I was actually being filmed and displayed on the jumbotron. I was unsure which camera was filming me and span round in a tizzy looking for the cameras. When I finally found it I was already off the jumbotron and my 5 seconds of fame had evaporated.

None of the starters were playing in the second half and many of the fans were not getting into the game despite it actually being a better game of football. The Bills scored a touchdown, and the Bears bounced back with a TD after intercepting the ball. It was a tie ball game going into the fourth when the Bears third string QB, Basinez threw three interceptions, which the Bills capitalized on. Finally our rookies did some good work and Bears wide receiver, Iglesias, scored a touchdown with a nice cross route around the back of the end zone, though it was too late and the Bills finished winners with the score at 20-27.

After the game I found the tailgaters from “Da Bus” who were at the game. One of the Bears fans had been given one of the game day balls, and it had the word “Bears” printed on it. He graciously let me take a picture with it while fireworks were popping out of the stadium behind me.

They congratulated me on my jumbotron performance. They thought I was waving my arms on the jumbotron because it looked like I was fending off would-be angry Bill fans. Back at my bus, Jay and Karen, had been told of my jumbotron debacle and knew the real reason I was flapping my arms about; because I could not find the camera filming me!

Last week I was wondering what my extreme football fan name would be. Due to my panic looked flurry for the camera, Karen and Jay have now come up with a nick name for me and have coined me “Jumbotron.”