I Took an Englishman to a Tennessee Vols Football Game

Paul Gerald · Profile
I Took an Englishman to a Tennessee Vols Football Game

Before I started helping (mostly) Americans see soccer games in England, I was a sportswriter and a travel writer. One of my stories from that time is when I took an Englishman to a Tennessee Vols football game.

I am now a veteran of well over 100 English soccer games at more than 60 football grounds around the United Kingdom. I try to explain soccer to people, help them see games, and share all I can about the supporter culture as I learn it, mostly from English people.

But in 1991, the roles were reversed. I was 25, living in Tennessee where I grew up, and a follower of the Ole Miss Rebels football team. I went to see them play American football against the Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville, and the night before, in a youth hostel in Gatlinburg, I met an English guy named Neal.

Neal was on a cultural tour of the southeastern US, and my default setting is to see and do interesting things, then help others do the same. And I like to tell stories.

So here’s the story — written years later for the Memphis Flyer newspaper — of how I helped Neal explore the big orange slice of American culture that is UT Vols Southeastern Conference college football at Neyland Stadium. Just like I now help Americans understand soccer in England, this was one time when I got to explain to an Englishman how American football is played.

Read “On the Orange Side” over on my original, personal site, PaulGerald.com.

(See if you can identify the mistake I made in writing that column — something in there that almost certainly could not have happened.)


Written By Paul Gerald
Paul Gerald, Owner and Founder of Groundhopper Soccer Guides · Profile
Paul is a traveler, writer, publisher and soccer freak. He started Groundhopper Soccer Guides as EnglishSoccerGuide.com in 2014. When he's not kicking around England working on this site and his book, you can find him at Providence Park in Portland, cheering on the Portland Timbers.

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