William Shakespeare as soon as wrote that “the miserable have no other medicine but only hope.” Three years in the past, Darren Foster struggled to seek out any.
It was the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic and the uncommon genetic syndrome that Foster’s teenage daughter, Bethany, suffers from made her probably prone to the worst case state of affairs of the virus. In 2020, there have been greater than 238,000 deaths from coronavirus within the United Kingdom and Ireland alone, and the stout former rugby participant, father of two and meting out optician from Warrington, England — midway between Manchester and Liverpool — was usually consumed by worry and loneliness. Then he discovered hope in an uncommon place: the U.Ok. Ravens.
Baltimore and London are separated by extra 3,600 miles and an ocean, however the longtime fan group supplied the solace and pleasure that Foster, a 40-year-old constructed like a fireplace hydrant and with a beard as thick as his northern English accent, desperately wanted amid strict isolation guidelines.
“I’ve got a vulnerable daughter, so [the pandemic] was terrifying for us,” he advised The Baltimore Sun. “Every day you’d activate the TV and this individual’s dying and that individual’s dying.
“The Ravens put on a lot of Q&As [on the internet] with players, but it also let us meet other U.K. fans as well as fans abroad. They’d do the Q&A and you could sit and chat and then they’d shut it off, but we’d all just stay on. We would talk for two hours afterward. It was the only chance at that time that I had any sort of community because I wasn’t breaking any [pandemic] rules. It was amazing from the mental health side of it.”
That Foster was a Ravens fan to start with is one thing of windfall.
The NFL held its first regular-season worldwide sport Oct. 28, 2007, with the New York Giants taking part in the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium. Not lengthy after, Foster was launched to the sport by his father-in-law, an avid planespotter who’d made a number of journeys to the United States and develop into an Atlanta Falcons fan. Soon, watching no matter video games had been on TV in England that Sunday night become a household ritual.
“With the rugby league background, there’s lots of big hits in that as well,” Foster stated. “I was quite enjoying watching people smack each other all over the pitch.”
That included the Ravens, who had a torrid stretch from 2008 to 2012, reaching the AFC Championship 3 times and capturing their second Super Bowl in that span. Though Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Lewis was the chief of these groups and what Foster stated could be a pure attraction, it was Torrey Smith who caught his eye due to the swagger and elegance the receiver performed with, together with the dreadlocks flowing out from below his helmet. He was additionally moved, he stated, by Smith’s 127 yards and two touchdowns on six catches towards the New England Patriots simply hours after Smith’s youthful brother, Tevin Jones, was killed in an early morning motorbike accident in northeastern Virginia in 2012.
One of his earliest reminiscences of the Ravens was additionally the “Mile High Miracle,” Baltimore’s inconceivable 38-35 double time beyond regulation upset of the Peyton Manning-led Denver Broncos throughout the 2012 playoffs by which Joe Flacco linked with Jacoby Jones on a 70-yard, game-tying landing with below a minute left in regulation.
Foster was hooked.
It turned out he additionally wasn’t alone. As the NFL continued to play extra video games abroad, the fan base for all its groups continued to develop and teams started to proliferate. The U.Ok. Ravens group, which was began in 2017 and is helmed by Brits Shane Richmond and Ian Demain, has seen its membership develop considerably.
The identical 12 months the group began was additionally the primary time the Ravens performed in London, the place they had been blown out by the Jacksonville Jaguars, 44-7. The working joke among the many group is that the sport by no means occurred of their eyes. That 12 months, Richmond and Demain stated, there have been about 150 followers who confirmed up for a celebration on the group’s unofficial pub, The Admiralty in Trafalgar Square, the night time earlier than the sport. For this week’s sport towards the Tennessee Titans at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, they bought over 1,000 tickets, which covers the price of meals and drinks, and needed to flip individuals away.
“It’s grown massively over the last six or seven years,” Richmond advised the group’s “The Lounge” podcast, including that Lamar Jackson’s stardom has been one of many greatest causes. “It’s been really interesting to see these people come along. Some join because of Lamar, some of them it’s the first team that they watched, some of them they have some sort of connection to Baltimore. Some people just like purple uniforms.”
Even Jackson, who’s taking part in in London for the primary time, has been stunned by the response he has gotten.
“For me to have fans in London, I never dreamed about that, so that’s amazing to me,” he stated. “I didn’t know [how popular the NFL is here] till individuals acknowledged me. I used to be like, ‘That’s loopy. I’m recognized in London.’
The U.Ok. Ravens have gotten recognized, too. For the primary time, they’ve had meetups across the nation each week this season. They have a podcast. There are a number of WhatsApp teams. The group’s X (previously Twitter) account has greater than 5,000 followers and their Facebook group greater than 1,000 followers.
The group has observed as effectively. On Friday, normal supervisor Eric DeCosta greeted followers on the group’s occasion on the Counting House pub. So did Lewis.
“Here, if you’re a fan of the Ravens, you almost certainly won’t know a fan of the Ravens who lives near you and you probably won’t know anyone else who’s into American football,” Richmond stated. “So being able to connect these people through social media, the WhatsApp groups and meetups is a really big thing.”
The group additionally lately launched an Instagram web page, which Foster is in control of.
“Post Covid, I felt like I owed something back a little bit,” he stated. “So I started up the Instagram and it’s snowballed from there. At any point, you should be able to go to a meet somewhere in the country. Now there’s hundreds of people going to these meets all over the country and it’s built this community.”
And it’s that neighborhood that takes Foster again to 2020 when he and a variety of others had been scuffling with the pandemic.
“It’s really good seeing all these people meeting; we were strangers when we spoke on the internet and now everyone’s friends and I’m getting pictures sent to me all the time,” he stated as he started to choke up. “I’ve got to be honest, sometimes I think I’m really proud. It’s just an amazing thing.”
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Source: www.bostonherald.com