PART III - STONEY STINKS IT UP IN BALTIMORE!

Thur 21 Oct

Left our base in Carlstadt, New Jersey and hit the road early morning - first stop Philadelphia!

And then we stumbled onto the Eagles practice just outside Veterans Stadium. We were just in time to see Charles Johnson to drop a TD pass - which is pretty much the Eagles offense this year! Here we are picture with ex Rhein Fire star DT Tyrone Williams who recognized our Claymores shirts. Also shouting at us was ex Galaxy OL Robert Barr. Sadly no Brian Finneran as he had been cut a couple of weeks before …

We also hassled Donovan McNabb. Well, we had just bought a McNabb jersey for a friend so it seemed a good time for him to sign it! We resisted buying any Philly Cheese Steak Heads from the team shop however …

The gate to the stadium was kind of open, so we figured why not? I guess we've been in the end zone more often than the Eagles WR's this year then! We can also report that we suffered no major injuries from the fabled astro turf of horrors at the Vet!

Then it was time for another 2 hour drive south to Baltimore for some Thursday Night Football! This stadium is as beautiful as it looks. The baseball field (Camden Yards) is right behind it as well, and is a sight to behold too.

Since it's a pain to drive in a kilt, that means that the quick pre-game change always has to take place in the parking lot!

We parked up right next to a big ole Chiefs truck and of course found great hospitality! And yes, that purple on the right is Vikings purple not Ravens purple!

But we drunk with both sides! These guys saved our asses with some damn fine chili that would prove useful as the temperature forecast was for about 35 degrees that night!

Gametime! A mad rush past the baseball stadium and the beer garden / DJ stage (it's almost like a Power Party) got us inside PSI Net just before kick-off. Then we seemed to walk around the whole stadium to get to our section right at the back of the top tier in the nosebleed section. This was no bad thing as it allowed us to stand and keep warm!

It's still an amazing view up there, and even if you can't see too well there's always those massive wide-screen replay screen to stare at, that are quite unbelievable and like nothing we've seen before!

Tony Gonzalez catches a TD to put KC up 7-0 in the 2nd quarter. There weren't many offensive highlights in this stinker though. For example the first 3 times KC got the ball they were faced with 3 third and longs, and each time they handed the ball off for little or no gain! On the other side, Stoney Case (who were championing as a NFLE'er during pre-game although all he ever did was hand off the ball at Murrayfield a few times) was quickly playing himself out of favour with the locals. He missed receivers short, he missed receivers long. It was ugly. Then when his passes finally did find hands, it was to Chiefs. Two of his three INT's went back for touchdowns, with the last one making it 28-0 in the 4th. BOOOOOOOOOOO! That was it for Stoney, whose INT's had been returned for more yards (108) than he passed for (103)!

It's smiles all round as Stoney is benched, and Tony Banks takes the field! This is Toilet Football all right! Banks actually leads the Birds to a late score and prevents a shut-out. Final score 35-8 Chiefs.

After the game we caught up with 2 ex-Claymores Tom Barndt (and his dad) (OL 96) and Jeff Smith (OL 97). We couldn't find Ty Parten though. Maybe it was because we were looking for some guy with a blue and white painted face!

We got back to our parking lot at about 1.30 am, and started the drive out west. We stopped somewhere near Frederick, Virginia for the night truly knackered, getting lost along the way! We later found that Frederick, MD is only a mile or so from Burkittsville, MD where The Blair Witch Project was set. Here we were, 3 folk with a video camera, lost in the woods. Sound familiar?

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