PART VI - Surviving the Steel City of Pittsburgh!

Mon 25 Oct

After driving through Ohio we ended up in Pittsburgh late afternoon, and after a ridiculous detour to find our hotel we finally got down to Three Rivers just as night fell. The tailgating scene in Pittsburgh is hard-core! Part of this is because most of the parking lot lies under the Pennsylvania equivalent of the Spaghetti Junction just outside the stadium! So many fires are lit it's a wonder the whole place doesn't go up in smoke!

By the statue of the late great Roberto Clemente, the star Pirates player who was killed in an air crash near the end of his career. Spookily on that day famous golfer and Chinese impressionist Payne Stewart had befallen a similar fate ...

Some good Pittsburgh people that didn't threaten to beat or molest us! To say this was a "tough" crowd is an understatement. Just about everybody is in black and gold on game-day and they don't take too kindly to colours not fitting this description. I think we got rescued here just in time - thanks for the beers Ed!

Believe me, we would have been dead without these precious objects!

Kickoff time at Three Rivers. This place was rocking - maybe all that terror towel waving warmed the place up because it wasn't as cold as predicted. The Steelers took an early 7-0 lead, and looked to be cruising at halftime up 13-0.

At half-time they honored the 1974 Steelers Super Bowl winning team (it was their 25^th anniversary of their first Super Bowl win). The loudest cheers were reserved for LB Jack Lambert and coach Chuck Noll.

In the 2^nd half the Falcons found an offense. It was called "Throw the ball to Terrence Mathis on one" and amazingly it worked again and again. Chandler threw the ball 34 times, and probably 25 of them went #81's way. But the Steelers D couldn't quite get to grips with this complex game-plan. The Falcons had the cut the lead to 13-7, and seemed poised to go ahead with a 1^st and goal with just over 2 minutes to play. But amazingly they tried 4 runs and failed. It seemed as if the Steel Curtain had returned. The Dirty Birds got the ball back and moved the ball down field, but with 1 second left Chandler decided to look to Dwight instead (see above) and the ball was batted away. Why not throw to #81???????

After the game we looked out for Cheddar favourite Levon Kirkland, and asked him if he had enjoyed his visit to Scotland earlier in the year when he had commentated on some Claymores games. He said yes.

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