\n<\/p>\n
O<\/span>n 14 October 2024, having never supported a team before, or, to be honest, especially liked sports at all, I became a Buffalo Bills fan. I\u2019d been going out with my Buffalonian boyfriend for more than a year, which I think in his parents\u2019 eyes meant my introduction to the team that animates their entire hometown was overdue. They drove down to New York City, kitted me out in a Bills baseball cap, hoodie and blanket (and plastic Bills bag to hold it all in) \u2013 and took me to a game.<\/p>\n I thought I\u2019d seen enough Super Bowls to know I didn\u2019t care about football, but wrapped in that staticky blanket, one of the few spots of Buffalo blue in a snake-green sea of Jets supporters at MetLife Stadium, I realized what I\u2019d been missing: a team. Or more specifically: this<\/em> team.<\/p>\n In Buffalo, the Bills are everywhere. I used to find this bewildering on my trips up to western New York (never call it upstate); now I find it comforting. Signs saying \u201cBillieve\u201d welcome you into people\u2019s houses; babies wear Bills onesies; coats, T-shirts, jewellery and underwear all feature the team\u2019s chic streaking buffalo. Even in the off-season, a car\u2019s horn tooting \u201cLet\u2019s go Buffalo!\u201d can set off canon of identical beeps from nearby vehicles. \u201cGo Bills\u201d means both hello and goodbye, sometimes even the last goodbye, as I discovered in a local cemetery, where a grave featured the phrase as an epitaph. I\u2019m sure it\u2019s not the only one.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the Bills are <\/em>Buffalo. They\u2019re the spirit of the city, and for many Buffalonians, a metaphor for it too. Buffalo\u2019s boom times are long behind it, though the architectural marvels built by the money flowing through the Erie Canal speak to its former importance as an industrial hub. The city is generally depicted as hard on its luck, featuring in the news usually only when there\u2019s a disaster, like the shooting of 10 Black people in 2022, or the more recent bus crash that killed five. But what that narrative misses is the story of a town that\u2019s quietly been undergoing an economic and cultural revival thanks to significant public spending and committed local preservationists.<\/p>\n Buffalo\u2019s state of almost-thereness is reflected back to it by its beloved home team, who\u2019ve got so close<\/em> but never quite secured the win. There were the devastating four Super Bowl losses in a row from 1991 through 1994, then a play-off drought that lasted for nearly a generation. The Bills kept inching ever closer to Super Bowl greatness, their efforts turbocharged by Josh Allen, the NFL\u2019s reigning MVP and widely considered one of its best quarterbacks. \u201cYou have to be pretty tough in a place like this,\u201d Allen has said<\/a> of his adopted hometown. \u201cWe feel like we have guys in this locker room that maybe haven\u2019t gotten all the recognition they deserve, coming here on the last leg of their career and just coming here trying to prove something to not just the world but to themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/span>Buffalo Bills have long been known as among the NFL\u2019s most passionate.<\/span> Photograph: Al Bello\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The Bills are no hardscrabble minor team \u2013 next year they\u2019ll move into a new $2.1bn stadium<\/a> \u2013 but this kind of underdog tale is addictive. It\u2019s a story of hard work and capability, of striving for something that\u2019s always just out of reach. When the Kansas City Chiefs crushed the Bills\u2019 dreams in last season\u2019s AFC Championship Game, I almost felt the whole city\u2019s heart breaking.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s the thing: failure bonds people, and there\u2019s nothing like rooting for a losing team to glue a community together. The immense positivity required to defend a team \u2013 or a town \u2013 you love when it\u2019s on the back foot can be an irresistible draw. You\u2019ll find none of the hauteur of the fans of a winning team up in Buffalo. I\u2019ve yet to attend one of their legendary tailgates outside the stadium \u2013 I\u2019ll admit that I\u2019m somewhat scared of doing so, having seen the videos of fans<\/a> hurling themselves around trying to break tables \u2013 but you needn\u2019t look far to see their dedication. When one of Buffalo\u2019s regular snowstorms roll around, Bills fans turn up to clear the snow from the stadium. It goes without saying that these are not fair-weather fans; indeed, the trick to keeping chills at bay in freezing temperatures, my boyfriend\u2019s mother explained, is bringing cardboard to stand on.<\/p>\n The idea of home means a lot in team sports. People rarely root for a team based on performance \u2013 allegiance is usually inherited, or geographical. But what I\u2019ve learned as a previously teamless person is that it can also be gifted. I thought I wasn\u2019t into football because it was hard to follow or boring or maybe even just too male, but I realise now that the only thing I needed was a person to extend a hand to me and say: you can be part of our team.<\/p>\n My boyfriend and I moved to London earlier this year, and he\u2019s further than he\u2019s ever been from the town that calls itself the \u201ccity of good neighbors\u201d. But every once in a while, we see a blue No 17 jersey or spy a Buffalo keyring dangling off a bag, reminding us that his neighbors, his community and his family are closer than we think. So we say hello, Buffalo-style: \u201cGo Bills.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" On 14 October 2024, having never supported a team before, or, to be honest, especially liked sports at all, I became a Buffalo Bills fan. I\u2019d been going out with my Buffalonian boyfriend for more than a year, which I think in his parents\u2019 eyes meant my introduction to the team that animates their entire 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NEWS<\/a>","rttpg_excerpt":"On 14 October 2024, having never supported a team before, or, to be honest, especially liked sports at all, I became a Buffalo Bills fan. I\u2019d been going out with my Buffalonian boyfriend for more than a year, which I think in his parents\u2019 eyes meant my introduction to the team that animates their entire…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28238"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28240,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28238\/revisions\/28240"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/design-providers.com\/rise\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}