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They’ll toil and sweat, but hopefully without the blood and tears.
A London game is more than just a typical road trip for NFL teams. It’s a chance to learn about local history, too.
In fact, the New England Patriots and Jacksonville Jaguars — who play Sunday at Wembley Stadium — don’t even need to leave their practice facilities to do so.
The Patriots will train on Friday at the exclusive Harrow School, whose most famous alumni is Winston Churchill. Farther out in the countryside, the Jaguars use a practice field that is nearly on top of a maze of World War II air raid shelters.
Harrow consists of 324 acres on a hill overlooking London where Churchill spent his high school years before entering politics and leading Britain through World War II as prime minister.
“If any of the Pats players take a break from practice, they should walk around and see the school grounds because they’re quite grand,” said Lee Pollock, a director and senior adviser to the board of the International Churchill Society.
A highlight is the Speech Room, where young Churchill recited 1,200 lines from the poem “Lays of Ancient Rome” from memory and won a prize for the feat.
“At Harrow, he learned what he called the most noble thing in the world: the construction of a sentence in the English language,” Pollock said.
Pockets of American politicians have long admired and quoted the cigar-chomping Churchill, and that’s spilled over into sports too. Los Angeles Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh is a big fan. Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker cited Churchill in a social media post about courage, though he’s not the first to misattribute a quote to him.
New York Jets owner Woody Johnson had a large Churchill portrait in his office at the U.S. embassy when he was ambassador to the United Kingdom under then-President Donald Trump. Outside of his wartime leadership, Churchill’s legacy is more complex.
The Jags are close to history, too. To avoid German bombing in WWII, the Midland & Scottish Railway…
Source link : https://www.foxsports.com/stories/nfl/patriots-to-practice-on-winston-churchill-old-stomping-grounds-in-london
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Publish date : 2024-10-18 16:39:49
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