Super Bowl spectacular worthy of hype - and insomnia (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Super Bowl spectacular worthy of hype - and insomnia

5:30pm Friday 10th February 2012 in Simon Parker Column By Simon Parker

The glazed, unblinking stare gives it away.

Like extras from Shaun of the Dead; the zombies of late-night television.

While the light might be on, there’s no chance of anybody being at home.

But then blurry Monday comes with the package after Super Bowl Sunday. Unless, of course, you’re one of those organised types who books the next day off well in advance.

For the rest of us, this writer included, the following morning passed in a familiar hazy fog spent vaguely trying to remember what had actually happened a few short hours earlier.

As an American football devotee, the insomnia was worth it though after another cracking contest went right to the wire.

Unlike the FA Cup final, which rarely lives up to its billing, the Super Bowl once again served up a match worthy of the hype.

Non-believers might give it the MIA middle finger (you had to watch Madonna’s half-time show to understand that) but us gridiron groupies were treated to an edge-of-the-duvet spectacle that was in doubt right up to the final drive.

And the New York Giants maintained the trend of the outsider coming good at the right moment to steal the trophy from the more anticipated big guns.

The G Men, as we like to call them, were not in the top four seeds in the play-offs and had to do it the hard way with three away games.

But like Green Bay the year before – and the Rhinos in Super League – they got hot when it mattered as those around them with better regular-season records faltered.

New England Patriots, with pin-up quarterback Tom Brady and his Brazilian super-model girlfriend, came up short – just as they had done in identical circumstances four years earlier. Momentum triumphed over consistency.

Tickets for next season’s Wembley game are already booked. But what to do on Sunday nights now?

Somehow Wild at Heart doesn’t come close.