Surrey Sports Park played host to the NFL’s Detroit Lions for their NFL Play 60 community day on Tuesday 21 October ahead of this Sunday’s match against the Atlanta Falcons at Wembley Stadium.
School kids from Uxenden Manor Primary School enjoyed a morning of American football skills coaching alongside the NFC Northern Division leaders, which included NFL megastar Calvin ‘Megatron’ Johnson (pictured at top), quarter-back Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh and Reggie Bush & Golden Tate (both pictured bleow).
Surrey Sports Park Chief Executive, Paul Blanchard, said, “It’s a pleasure to once again host the NFL here at Surrey Sports Park and welcome the Detroit Lions to London and the UK. This NFL Play 60 event offers the kids an amazing opportunity to get to meet and play with these sports stars and it was also fantastic that students from our University of Surrey team Surrey Stingers were also able to take part.”
The community event was held as part of the NFL’s Play 60 campaign, which aims to make the next generation of youth the most active and healthy by encouraging them to be active for at least 60 minutes a day. In addition to national outreach and online programs, NFL Play 60 is implemented at the grassroots level through NFL’s in-school, after-school and team-based programs.
It was only last month that Surrey Sports Park hosted the Oakland Raiders for their NFL Play 60 Community Day before their big match up with the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium. That week, the Raiders went down 38-14 at the national stadium on the Sunday, but hopefully the Detroit Lions will fare better this Sunday.
Detroit Lions take on Atlanta Falcons at Wembley Stadium this Sunday as part of the NFL International Series. Since 2007, the NFL International Series has hosted regular season American Football games outside of the U.S.A and so far all of the nine games have been hosted at Wembley.