At home and on the road with the Bucs With my dreaded 40th birthday coming up I wanted to have a very special trip to Florida and finally get to see the Bucs play on the Road. I have seen them play nine times at RJS but never seen them play elsewhere. The opportunity presented itself with the Road game in New Orleans. It was just about drivable and could be reached in two days. After much persuasion I convinced my girlfriend we could stay in Pensacola, Florida which was a three hour drive to New Orleans. Firstly there was the Redskins home game itself and having managed to get tickets for the game through Chris on the Bucpower message board(never book my trip up in time to get tickets through the UK Bucs club) we had excellent seats. There were a lot of Redskins fans around us who have to be the most obnoxious NFL fans I have ever seen. I’ve been to RJS before were there was a large number of fans from Green Bay and they were mainly okay but the Redskins fans thought their team were the greatest NFL side ever and the Bucs sucked. A few Redskins fans near us spent the 1st quarter slagging the Bucs off but had to move for their own safety as a few Bucs fans (including myself) took issue with what they were saying. Many of you would have seen the game on SKY and know the Bucs should have put that game away before the end of the 1st half. Talk about a game of two halves. Gradkowski was just not up to the job and I hope we never see him take another snap for the Bucs again. Those last five minutes of the game seemed to take ages. Ronde Barber gets his record breaking interception to end the game or so we thought but the Bucs offense can’t get a 1st down and we had to go through the whole agony again. Those horrible Redskins fans were already celebrating their impending victory as they drove down the field. The thought of walking out of RJS with Redskins fans rubbing it in our faces was too much to bear. The celebrations when Brian Kelly made the final interception had to be seen to be believed it was more relief than anything. I reminded some Redskins fans of the score near us but one of them responded by giving me ‘the finger’ which just made me laugh. Now there was the simple matter of getting to New Orleans. It would have been easy to fly there from Tampa but there’s no fun in that and I fancied the drive there. I had always fancied doing a long road trip in USA and in fact it is very simple driving from Tampa to New Orleans just 160 miles on Route 75 then 470 miles on Route 10. No M25 to deal with just miles of open highway. We left Tampa on the Friday before the game and stayed in Gainesville home of the Florida Gators. I was pleasantly surprised to find the Stadium open there and there was an excellent shop selling Florida Gators stuff . Next morning it was off on the road again to Pensacola. This was too be our base for the next two days. Pensacola does have some of the best beaches in the World and my girlfriend was happy to stay there while I went to New Orleans. The day of the game, nice easy drive to New Orleans. As I get into New Orleans the effects of Hurricane Katrina are still very much in evidence and it will take years to repair all the damage. I was determined to wear my Bucs shirt and Bucs UK cap and let everyone know I was a Bucs fan. The New Orleans Saints fans were great, there were a few comments here and there but nothing nasty and one guy came up and shock hands and said good luck. I managed to obtain a ticket from a scalper for $65 in seats right up the very top of the stadium. On arriving at the Superdome it has to be the most ugliest Stadium I’ve seen from the outside but on the inside I was pleasantly surprised. it’s a very nice stadium and every seat was padded. Met some Bucs fans in there who thought I was the most devoted Bucs fan ever, not just coming from England but driving all the way up to New Orleans as well. The game itself was a good NFL game with the lead changing hands several times. The Superdome was really loud especially when the Bucs were on Offense and it was a wonder there weren’t more false start calls on the offense. After the safety with about three minutes to go I decided to vacate my seat and go downstairs to get out quickly as I didn’t want the Saints reminding me of the score! One guy said ‘Tampa who’ to me as he left the stadium! I wonder what he and all the many other Saints fans who left the game early thought when they found out the final score. I went down right to the front and had a great view expecting the Saints to just run out the clock but the 1st play I saw was the crazy reverse play which saw us regain the ball (their coach has been rightly slated about that call but the Bucs Offense still had to go 40 yards to score) Now it was game on. I thought that the Bucs were right to go for it on 4th down at the 28 as I feared Bryant would miss under all that noise and pressure. With the Bucs now closing in on the winning touchdown I became really nervous, suddenly we could win the game we had no right to win and all the long drive up from Tampa would be worth it. I was trying to keep quiet as I was still surrounded by Saints fans but when we got the touchdown I couldn’t contain myself and was jumping up and down. The Saints fans were fine about it most left straight away, one guy came up to me shock hands and said we deserved to win (don’t think you would get that at an English Premiership match). Outside the stadium every Bucs fan I was meeting we were high fiving, none of us could believe we had won. I had to laugh when some Saints fans were chanting LSU(local College team in National Championship title game soon) talk about fickle. One Saints fan shouted at me’ Merry Christmas Tampa Bay we gave you that game as a present’. I just said thank you. My girlfriend sent me text telling me to get the hell out of their fast fearing for my safety. Everything was fine and I was soon back on Route 10 driving back feeling very happy, for me it was almost as good as winning the Superbowl. Our trip back to Tampa took in the Beautiful coastal route from Pensacola and took two more days to get back to Tampa. As well seeing the Bucs play twice I also got to see South Florida Bulls play at RJS and also see Tampa Lightning Ice Hockey play at St Pete Times Forum. Sadly my actual 40th Birthday was ruined by seeing England being beaten by Croatia (watched from a British Bar) which rather put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. On the whole a fantastic trip and can’t wait to go again maybe next time I will drive even further to a Bucs game!! Paul Greenfield, 13 December 2007