Football a sideshow at wet Wembley

AMERICAN FOOTBALL/New York Giants 13 Miami Dolphins 10:Roger Goodell, the man who brought NFL football to Wembley Stadium, might just go down in history as the first American who tried to make a slow buck.

A sell-out crowd watched the gridiron evangelists from New York and Miami struggle to overcome the conditions here last night in the first competitive NFL match played outside the Americas, and it will be a long time before a judgment can be made on the success or otherwise of commissioner Goodell's drive to make his product a global experience.

The match, in which the New York Giants beat the Miami Dolphins 13-10, must be viewed as a success of sorts, though it is uncertain how many of the 81,000 crowd came to watch the football and how many to view the new facility. Wembley, after all, is still a breathtaking novelty and an England Under-21 football match earlier this season also sold out - although that match was limited to a 60,000 capacity.

American football, squeezing a 60-minute game into something more than three hours, is different too. The game may well catch on here - but they said that 20 years ago when Channel 4, not Sky, were doing their best to champion it.

Meanwhile the Wembley traditionalist, for whom the driving rain, the queues, the ticket touts and the tacky memorabilia were enough to squeeze out a tear of nostalgia, was not entirely forgotten either.

For the NFL traditionalist it was another story. The cheerleaders got a bigger cheer than the players. And the Formula One star Lewis Hamilton got a bigger cheer than anyone. As for the "tailgating", it took place without a car in sight, inside the Wembley Arena with everyone looking a little self-conscious; Americans are much better at doing relaxed.

Officially this was a home game for the Dolphins, but it is doubtful whether they have experienced much mizzle like this back home in Miami. Their supporters appeared to outnumber those of the Giants, but then their colours are the more eye-catching.

The modern Dolphins team is unlikely to be confused with the vintage of 1972, the only side to have "a perfect season", winning all of their 17 matches. These Dolphins are the Derby County of the NFL and went into yesterday evening's game having lost all seven of their previous fixtures. Their already bleak prospects had been further weakened when injury ruled out the quarterback Trent Green, running back Ronnie Brown and safety Renaldo Hill.

The Giants have now won their last six matches but they were not at their best here. Nor did they have to be against low-key opposition, though they looked relieved at the end, especially after a late touchdown by Ted Ginn Jr had closed the gap to three points. The Giants have the Super Bowl in their minds and there was always a danger that this match would disrupt their rhythm and thus their winning sequence.

Their key player, quarterback Eli Manning, who is still trying to emerge from the vast dark patch that is his brother Peyton's shadow, had difficulty finding his receivers in the slippery conditions. But the Giants went ahead with a field goal from their Scottish-born kicker, Lawrence Tynes, at the end of the first quarter. Late in the first half they moved to 13-0 following a touchdown by Manning and another field goal from Tynes.

A field goal from Miami's Jay Feely pulled it back to 13-3 in the third quarter, but the pattern of the match was unchanged, with both quarterbacks happier to run the ball than throw it. When Manning did pass he had difficulty finding his range.

Early in the last quarter Tynes missed a field goal from only 25 yards and looked embarrassed enough to bury himself on the spot. It never looked like proving expensive.

In the last five minutes it finally stopped raining. It was too late to reprieve an essentially dull game but this was always likelier to be a great occasion than a scintillating match-up.