American football in London? English get up-close look at Chiefs ahead of Sunday’s game

Despite the NFL’s best attempts to introduce the sport to London, the city is still not too familiar with football.

The game’s confusing, the name’s confusing — Sporting KC plays football, the Chiefs play American football — and it’s competing for an audience more interested in rugby, cricket and football. Football football — soccer, to you — not American football.

The capital of England might be even less familiar with the teams involved. Because we generally don’t add “city” onto the end of place names in the UK, Kansas City can easily be confused with Kansas the state. Not that either can immediately be placed on the map by your average Londoner. Ask the man in the street to name a famous Kansas City landmark, and he’s more likely to say the Yellow Brick Road rather than Arthur Bryant’s.

Which of course makes your average Kansas Citian wince.

All that’s surely set to change on Sunday, when the NFL and the Chiefs bring football and Kansas City to Wembley Stadium. But the groundwork for Kansas City to make its mark on London has already been done with, what else, barbecue.

“When we started in London, there were four barbecue places, and nobody was doing Kansas City-style,” said Michael Gratz, a KC native who moved to the UK in 2012 and established Prairie Fire BBQ in 2013. “I thought, ‘OK, we’ll do Kansas City-style the way I know it. Since then, barbecue has exploded and now there’s 10 or 15 places in town.”

At first, Gratz cooked for local pubs as a pop-up and sold his creations at London’s multiple street market. Then, as demand rose, he started bottling his sauces. Now, his products are sold in 35 stores around London and, after three years as a solo venture, he’s just this month taken on two partners to cope with the increase in demand.

“It’s all still hand-made,” he said, explaining how he seals each bottle individually. “Labels, stickers, bottling, sauce making, everything’s still small-batch, hand-made. It’s Kansas City in a jar.”

Gratz is one of just a few Americans cooking authentic barbecue in London: two, by his own count, including himself. And he’s the only one cooking Kansas City barbecue, so he’s got the market cornered when Americans abroad, especially Kansas Citians, need a taste of home.

He has catered for the U.S. Embassy and the American School in London. Prairie Fire was served when Boulevard beer was first poured in an Islington pub and he’s fed the fans at Wembley when the NFL has come to town.

So he’s going to be there Sunday for the Chiefs’ game, right? Actually, no.

“My wife and I are going back to the States to apply for an entrepreneur visa for Prairie Fire for here in the UK. But we’re staying in New York ... maybe we’ll catch a Royals game.”

The Chiefs needn’t worry about playing to an empty house, though. The night before the game, the Pipeline, a bar in central London, was swamped by a sea of red. The faithful have congregated to drink to the Chiefs and to pay tribute to Tom Childs, founder of Arrowheads Abroad: an English fan club for expats, visiting fans and anyone else who knows that the last word of the National Anthem is “CHIIIEEEEEFFFFSSS!”

Childs was a celebrity Saturday night — he was greeted, cheered and congratulated. His hand was shaken. He was Don Corleone in a Kansas Jayhawks shirt.

“People just seem to know who I am,” he said, looking slightly bewildered as he was surrounded by football groupies.

He didn’t know how many fans were there on his behalf, but just walking around the bar, it appeared that KC had fans, or at least critics, from Scotland, Liverpool and Manchester.

Shelly Monnig traveled to the Pipeline all the way from Brussells, Belgium: “Tom got me into the NFL fan forum and it was a-may-zing,” she said.

Childs is heavily invested in NFL football. He buys tickets to every game played in London and stays up late to watch regular-season games despite the impractical hours caused by the time difference.

Oh, and he’s been to Kansas City.

“I went to Gates Bar-B-Q,” he said of his first trip to Kansas City in December of last year. “The food’s pretty good, and I got the best welcome I’ve ever had.”

And why Kansas City?

“I support Arsenal (the London soccer team), and the colours they wore matched Kansas City,” he said. “Why not?”