Green Smoke

By Alasdair MacKay

I am sitting down to write this on Monday morning after one of the most epic weekends of my life. My throat is sore and my feet ache—in a good way. And it is all because of Jets fans.

There has been a lot of anticipation about the New York Jets latest visit to London to take on another franchise with a big London fan-base, the Minnesota Vikings. Plans have been in the works for a while. Individual fans have been booking hotels, trains, and planes; fan groups from across the world have been communicating about where to meet up and when; the Jets themselves have been requisitioning legends to make the journey across the pond; and international arrivals have been deciding what else they want to take in of London while they are in town.

On that last point, Green Smoke had them covered, and it is precisely where my personal weekend began.

Friday afternoon, fully 48 hours before kick-off, a small band of key players in the UK Jets community met outside New Scotland Yard, hoping that enough Jets fans would have seen the posts on social media and would be interested in a walking tour across the capital. They needn’t have worried. By the time I caught up with them at Embankment (I was late due to work commitments), there were 30-40 people, all decked out in green and white, ambling along the embankment in the direction of Blackfriars and St. Paul’s cathedral. The first J-E-T-S of the weekend bellowed out as we all posed for photos outside London landmarks, including Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and Borough Market.

Borough Market was, in fact, the last stop before the official Jets meet-up of the weekend at Redwoods, a pub right next to London Bridge and in the shadow of the Shard, London’s tallest building. Christopher Johnson was there, just chilling by the bar; the Jets official DJ was spinning the tunes, and superfans were showing up dressed in full garb. Anth Cook of Gang Green UK wore knight’s shoulder pads and a crown, looking every bit the prince of Jet-dom when standing next to the king himself, Frank West, normally known as Jet-Green Santa.

More J-E-T-S chants rang out, and then a buzz filled the room as the entry of Eric Allen from the Jets media team was announced. Who was with him? Who was he there to interview? Last year we had the pleasure of hanging out with Laverneus Coles. The year before it was Nick Mangold. Well, in 2024, the Jets tripled up—Coles was back, but this time joined by Tony Richardson and Wayne Chrebet. All three Jets legends answered questions, signed jerseys, and then hung around to meet as many Jets fans as possible. Jon Love, my Hippo Jets Podcast co-host, was even lucky enough to meet CJ Mosley’s dad, who had decided to make the visit to Redwoods to hang out with the Jets fans. Surely Friday could not be topped by Saturday? Could it?

Er… yes.

Shoreditch, in the heart of urban East London, was the perfect venue for another Jets party, which kicked off at 1pm but truthfully got started a couple of hours before that. The legends were back, but this time the NFL and the Jets also laid on fun and games for all the family. There was cornhole, a vertical jump test, a throwing accuracy test for the budding quarterbacks in your life, face-painting, and prize giveaways. All of it located within an Aaron Rodgers 3rd down completion from some of the best street food available in London at Spitalfields Market and on Brick Lane. 

By Saturday evening, it was time for the Hippodrome Jets to get more involved, providing the venue for Jake Asman’s party. Asman is one of the premier Jets bloggers, with his own show on YouTube and a following that provided a sell-out and then some. Our regular home-from-home at the casino is Lola’s bar. It is where we watch the majority of Jets games (the ones not in London). But it simply wasn’t big enough for what Jake and the amazing people of Gang Green UK had put together. We were relocated to an area on the 4th floor called “the God’s,”  which can accommodate around 150 people. 400 Jets fans showed up. And Chrebet and friends made another appearance. Remember the small band of Jets fans outside Scotland Yard 36 hours earlier? Blown away doesn’t begin to cover it.

Sunday, of course, is game day. Now in the NFL world, that means a trip to a stadium to watch a game, yes, but it also means a tailgate. Tailgates are notoriously hard to do in London, as the stadiums here are normally squeezed between rows of terraced houses and serviced by a complex network of public transport options. Car parks are not welcome in the land of double-decker buses and oyster cards (they still exist, honest). So where would someone host a tailgate? Where could someone host a tailgate? Gang Green UK found an answer, and close to 500 Jets fans heeded the call.

Redemption Brewery was the venue, located in a throwback industrial park about a five-minute walk from the stadium. And they hit it out of the park! Pizza, hot dogs, beer, a raffle, and port-a-loos provided the tailgate essentials, and the Jets fans provided the atmosphere. More J-E-T-S woke the neighbours, and as 1p.m. rolled around, the entire army of Jets fans started a long procession toward the stadium itself.

The stadium. And the game. I mean …

Spurs’ new stadium is impressive from the outside, and the views are amazing. Working kitchens seemed to be in short supply (at least where I was sitting), and I was irked by the tannoy announcement advising fans to take their seats as “the event” was about to begin. Also, a stadium as new as that should really have escalators. On the field, the Jets started slowly and staged an ultimately flawed second-half comeback. It ended with a non-PI call on the Vikings and a subsequent interception, which left the Jets at 2-3 on the season. The play-calling from the Jets offence was poor, and the Vikings are a good team. For real. In spite of this, we came within one play of winning the game for the second week in a row. Ultimately, though, for the second week in a row, the Jets lost. 

Defeat and the famously poor public transport connections out of Spurs’ stadium led to my first bad mood of the weekend—sitting on a London bus trying to navigate my way back to the Hippodrome for another Jets party—the last of a long weekend.

Jets fans still gathered, and “the Gods” was full once again, but the mood was different. Frustrated game analysis, however, is always best in community, and everyone cheered up when we realised that, despite the disappointing start to the season, a win next week puts us atop the AFC East. 

So, the team lost. But fans won this weekend. We won new friends from all over the world. We won memories that will last a lifetime, and the London residents among us got to show off our homecity to thousands of people we already have something in common with—an enduring passion for a team that relentlessly lets us down. 

We keep telling ourselves that the Jets will rise again. Some of us still believe it when we say it. Many are less sure. What we can all be sure of, however, is that when they do—see, I said when, not if—London will be ready to welcome Jets fans from across the globe for the mother of all parties. 

Thank you to Gang Green UK, to Jake Asman, to the Jets Legends, and to Green Smoke for a wonderful time. Most importantly, thank you to every Jets fan that showed up in London. It was amazing to meet every single one of you. The Hippodrome Jets will resume normal service next week in front of our TV screens for the Bills match-up, and the anticipation is already building for when the Jets next come to town.