Surrey Sports Park played host to the NFL’s Oakland Raiders for their NFL Play 60 community day on Tuesday ahead of this Sunday’s match against the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium.
150 Uxenden Primary School kids enjoyed a morning of American football skills coaching alongside the California-based team, which included NFL stars Marcel Reece, Kevin Boothe, Justin Tuck, Khalil Mack, Usama Young and Darren McFadden.
The Raiders’ own cheerleaders, ‘The Raiderettes’ were also on hand to give the kids support and get involved.
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.
Designed to tackle childhood obesity, NFL Play 60 brings together the NFL’s long-standing commitment to health and fitness with an impressive roster of partner organizations. 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.
Surrey Sports Park Chief Executive, Paul Blanchard, said, “We are delighted to have hosted the Oakland Raiders today as they prepare for their match against the Miami Dolphins this Sunday. It was great to see so many of the kids enjoying American football and being inspired by all the players.
“Events like this community day show how the NFL’s popularity is increasing year on year in this country and we’re proud to be supporting the sport.”
The Raiders will be hosting the Miami Dolphins at Wembley Stadium this Sunday at 6pm as part of one of three NFL International Series games that will be held at the national stadium. Rock legends Def Leppard will be performing at the pre-game show.
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 eight games have been hosted at Wembley. With attendances reaching over 75,000 each time so far, the popularity of the sport in the UK is clearly strong and can surely grow in the future with more events like the one held at our very own Surrey Sports Park this week.