Tailgate to Heaven: A British NFL Fan Tackles America

This title provides an outsider’s take on American football. It delves deep into fandom, tailgating, and the action on the field to show why people love football as much as they do. It combines the road trip and sports genres into an irreverent and provocative cultural study. It demonstrates how a British fan comes to terms with his very American obsession. Despite a global recession, Adam Goldstein felt 2008 was the perfect time to invest in his lifelong passion. He sold his flat and left his job and his girlfriend in London for American football. His goal was to achieve what no other American football fan has accomplished: attend one live National Football League (NFL) game, including those in London and Canada, at every NFL stadium during the regular season. He travelled over 65,000 miles to watch 40 American football games in 18 weeks to experience and understand the phenomenal appeal of that classic American pastime, the tailgate party. He drove from stadium to stadium, tailgate to tailgate, sometimes 800 miles a day, digesting everything that American football could serve up. He met players and extreme fans alike and was party to surreal pregame rituals while absorbing the rich cultural differences of each part of the country. During his football odyssey, a grueling yet rewarding quest, he compared sports traditions and fandom in the United Kingdom and the United States, and in the process of football self-discovery, he found himself often embraced by NFL fans across the continent, as if he had the key that unlocked the very meaning of life. Tailgate to Heaven is a humorous, moving, and inspiring story about how nothing closes the cultural gap as love of the game and camaraderie.