Green Smoke

By Alasdair Mackay

Who amongst us hasn’t done this?

You come out of the tube at the end of a long day; you see a man waiting at the bus stop wearing a Patriots beanie and you boo him – the volume of the boo directly correlating to the size of the Pats fan and how bad a day you have had.

This happened to me, not for the first time, the other day and I was met with a confused stare from this “innocent” man trying to enjoy his vape pen. I left it – why would he understand why I was booing him? A few feet down the road I realised I was wearing my Jets jacket. So surely he should have understood! In fact, I should be due an explanation at least, if not an apology for Spygate.

One of my near neighbours has a Bengals hat. I have asked him about it before and he confessed to not knowing what it was – he just liked the hat. Another guy, who lives up the road from me has a Revis jersey that a family friend got him years ago after a trip to New York, but he has no idea who or what a Revis is. 

As NFL fans we are isolated in the UK. That is why we look for our communities – like minded people who understand our plight. People we can moan with and, very occasionally, celebrate with. So where are these people? And how do you determine which ones actually want to talk for five minutes about the benefits of sticking with Becton at Left Tackle, and which ones just like the hat?

The truth is – you can’t. Not really. You could try and start a J-E-T-S chant on your way to work and see if you get a response from a fellow commuter, but I wouldn’t recommend it. You can continue to boo every beanie hat to try and spark a conversation, but this will only yield mixed results at best. You can look for online communities like GreenBean or JetsCentral and look for anyone with a handle that involves the words “London” or “UK fan”, but then what are you going to do about it from there? There are ways of finding your people, however. And there are more of us than you realise – everyone that walked into the Barrow Boy & Banker pub on London Bridge in 2021 would have been pleasantly surprised at the turnout for a team on a decade long playoff drought that had been setting all the wrong types of NFL records. Make no mistake about it, the Jets are a popular franchise in the UK. There are about 10-15 Jets fans that meet for every game at the Hippodrome in Leicester Square during the season (and that number is growing every year), there are weekly Twitter Spaces for UK Jets fans and then there is this place – Green Smoke is the brainchild and passion project of another UK Jets fan who is looking for ways to make contact. Getting in touch with Gang Green UK could even wind up with you posing for a photo with Nick Mangold, jumping up and down in a rain-soaked endzone at the MetLife or enjoying a complimentary pitcher at the Hippodrome (where the manager dons a Sauce Gardner jersey, so you know you are covered – pun intended). Hope to see you there soon!