Super Bowl Party Sponsored by ESPN America

At about 9:30 p.m., John and I were picked up by Julien Urgenti for the short drive down to a restaurant called Ninkasi Gerland. 

Our Co-Hosts

Our reason for this adventure was a Super Bowl XLVII party co-hosted by ESPN America and our two local American football clubs, the Lyon Les Gones and your Bron-Villeurbanne Falcons. 

Ninkasi Gerland

The restaurant featured two large and one smaller interconnected rooms and several large TV screens to show the 49ers-Ravens contest. It was a great venue as the crowd swelled to over 350 people. Besides members of the Falcons and the Gones, we were joined by players from the Apaches which is the University team here in Lyon that I did not know existed. There will be more on the Apaches later.

We also had players from the Grenoble Centaurs club and even a few athletes from a club in Marseilles which is over two hours away by the high-speed TGV train.

The kick-off was scheduled for 12:30 a.m. Monday morning Lyon time.

Les Gones President
Stephane Dalbec

A wig to match his 49er jersey was a nice touch. He was working the registration desk with the Falcons' President Christophe Thuau.

At least I think it was a wig.

The Junior team with a champagne
toast to celebrate their victory on Sunday

RB Brice Rontet, with Julien,

was pro-Baltimore

SS Frédéric "Papi" Bastiand
was in 100% for San Francisco

I would guess that the football fans assembled were 2/3's in favor of the Ravens.

Some of our Falcons enjoying the

pre-game fare

Me enjoying Marine

Christophe Sidhoum
The Apaches Head Coach

Christophe is the owner of the Corner Café in the St-Just area of Lyon and works with Les Gones as well as the Apaches.

The Apaches are an American football team made up of Lyon University students who are new to the game. They only play a couple of games a year as it turns out versus other university clubs.

After a nice chat with Christophe, we agreed that it would benefits both of our organizations if our developmental B team were to practice/scrimmage against the Apaches sometime in the near future.

The Apaches players
were excited by the news

"Jeep Man"

I met "Jeep Man" as he called himself last night too. His real name is Thomas Baynaud and he plays for Les Gones, is a big Jeff Saturday fan, owns a World War II vintage Jeep and is a member of a group that reenacts World War II battles.

He apologized for his beard saying it was in tribute to his favorite player, Jeff Saturday, who was the long time Center for the Colts and just retired after playing for the Packers this season. I thought it completed the tribute perfectly.

We are going to get together soon to cruise about in his Jeep and check out his WWII memorabilia. I would love to see one of his battle reenactments this Spring or Summer.

Les Gones President Stephane Dalbec (#94),
Falcons LB Sam Benjavon (#52) and
Falcons President Christophe Thuau

They were announcing the winners of various door prizes and guess who won one?

With my new ESPN America

Nerf football and bag!

It must be mentioned that Brice Rontet's Raven outfit won him a brand new NFL leather football for wearing what was judged to be the night's Best Costume.

I watched most of the game with Mary Robinson Hubert from the AVF Club. While we were both pretty much neutral as to the 49ers-Ravens issue, Mary was very pro-Oregon when it came to the four former Ducks playing in the game.

The Ravens won the game at about 4:45 a.m. and after saying our goodbyes, we were back at The Villa at 6:05 a.m. thanks to making timely metro and bus connections.

As for me, I didn't awake until at 5:00 p.m. (it was accidental even then) which was a good thing as we had a Cadet practice scheduled for 6:00 p.m.

All in all, it was a rousing party with lots of good memories to be had.

The Cadet practice was a good one as we prepare for our first game of the 2013 season this Saturday at home.