Super Bowl anticipation

I come to dread Super Bowl week in Britain because you are suddenly visible as the American football fan within your social life, and the anonymity of the rest of the year disappears.

Every year those that otherwise have no interest in the sport sit down and watch the one game, only to be disappointed, bored or suddenly alive with the urge to criticise everything about the sport and therefore America, and of course relay this information on to the one or two fans they know.

Because I love an American sport, it is frequently assumed that I have an equally unrelenting love of American culture, which is only partly true. America is a country I am truly fascinated by, in equal parts admiration and repulsion. These feelings for the most part extend to the game of football, with more emphasis on the admiration. If you can truly understand a society through its favourite sports as I believe you can, American football has been extremely revealing about the American psyche, which only serves to add to my interest.

As the British Super Bowl audience are sold the game with endless montages of extreme catches, runs and touchdowns their patience is immediately tested when they realise the game is more equivalent in pace to a violent chess game broken down into separate plays, a concept that to a British sports fan, is largely alien.

Equally, the hype surrounding the game doesn't do anything to ensure more reasonable expectations of entertainment. When games descend into conservative punting competitions the interest level falls once again, and their voices grow louder: 'How can you find this sport interesting?'

By half time, most have disappeared to bed, and the few converts blinking back the tiredness are usually the ones witnessing the greatest finishes. Over recent years we have been treated to fantastic conclusions to games; the Giants extraordinary winning drive to beat the Patriots in a game that had been gently simmering until the final quarter. And the Arizona Cardinals comeback to almost beat Pittsburgh in 2009, only to be crushed by another winning drive by the Steelers.

Super Bowl night is certainly one of my favourite sporting events, like being treated to a World Cup final with all the same significance and emotion but on a yearly basis.

Those who just tune in for the novelty factor on Sunday night, are often oblivious to the five brutal months of games, heartbreak and sheer joy culminating in the one night that may mark the highest point in the featured players' careers. I was one such person tuning in to Radio 5 for the sheer novelty in 2003, and though I understood nothing of Jonathan Pearce's breathless commentary, I was hooked on the intoxicating atmosphere of the event.

Hopefully this year again, thousands will be converted into taking a serious interest in the sport, a sport of hidden complexities that mixes physics and strategy in creating moments of explosive action.