Anyone doubting the continued pulling power of American Football at Wembley should have been sat with me three rows from the back.

The fella who plonked himself in the next seat was built with the proportions that the Denver Broncos defence was sadly lacking. His concertina nose suggested he’d possibly played a Super Bowl or two.

And he’d paid a tenner less than me from a tout outside the stadium.

Pleasantries over, he asked me in a heavily-accented voice if I lived in London.

So I filled him in on the delights of the M1 speed restrictions on a Sunday morning and the extortionate price for a service- station cuppa and then wondered if he’d had to travel far.

“Romania,” came the reply, in a tone that suggested Bucharest was just off the M25. “I fly in yesterday morning. I go back tomorrow.”

He’d come over just for the game – and without the guarantee of a ticket until he met an obliging bloke with a wad of them outside the tube station.

He went on to say that his hotel was full of Dutch people with “heads full of cheese.” This, for the unitiated, means they are Green Bay Packers fans, who traditionally wear Dairy Lea-shaped hats in support of the town’s major export.

It seemed that every nation of Europe was represented. During the day, we saw other fans from Germany, Russia, Spain and France.

Not to mention a guy with a Dallas Cowboys baseball cap and a Bradford Bulls jacket.

The game between Denver and San Franciso 49ers lived up to expectations. Two well-matched and very poor teams fought out an ultimately gripping contest.

And everyone inside Wembley went home happy, however far away home may be.

My new mate, despite his fondness for Denver, had loved his whistlestop tour.

He even kept us updated on the scores elsewhere in regular mobile calls to a pal in Bucharest watching the NFL website.

We make the pilgrimage to Wembley every year. And each time my eyes are opened further by the sport’s massive popularity over here and beyond.

And I’ve also learned that there is no Romanian word for “pass interference”.