‘Sweetness’ and the ‘Refrigerator’ set to burst on to N.Z. screens

Press, 16 September 1987, Page 16

‘Sweetness’ and the ‘Refrigerator’ set to burst on to N.Z. screens

Sports followers will be jolted to their boot straps on Saturday evening when they are hit by the full impact of Television One’s decision to devote a full hour of Saturday peaktime viewing to highlights of the week’s action from the American National Football League. One’s 16-week season of American football telecasts will allow New Zealanders to choose favourites and follow their fortunes through the preliminaries, the play-offs,

and finally to the Super Bowl final. American football has proved to be a “natural” for television, with everything the armchair sportsman could want. It is a game American fans enthuse over. Young giants — capable of covering 100 m in even time — charge repeatedly like unstoppable trains at an immovable human wall of even/larger and stronger opponents. These mega-stars are known by some unlikely

names. No doubt William “The Refrigerator” Perry, is a gentle giant to his mother; but to opposing teams he is more than 145 kg of mean, uncompromising muscle carrying the legendary number 72 for the Chicago Bears, one of the top teams in the N.F.L. The players are big, but they, are not all mean. Walter “Sweetness” Payton plays alongside “The Refrigerator” in the Bears line-up, and is considered one of the greatest run-

ning backs to have played over the past decade or more. These, and other yet-to-be-established stars, like Vinnie Testraverde — the hottest property quarterback to be signed for the league in years — will fill One’s screens every Saturday night for the next three months. For those who want to try and grasp the basics of the game, “Sport on One” will run an N.F.L. preview on Saturday afternoon, in which the

game’s rules, players’ positions, scoring methods and strategies are explained. Some people are predicting the N.F.L. hour will become one of the country’s television sporting highlights, and may even persuade New Zealanders to get into the action themselves. They are using the United Kingdom experience as an example. There, when American football was first screened on television, only four

Grunt Grit Guile

teams existed in the length and breadth of the British Isles. Today, three years later, there are more than 400.

The fans those teams have attracted recently filled Wembley Stadium in London to capacity

when more than 100,000 crammed the terraces to watch two of America’s top teams put on an exhibition match. v