No gridiron gridlock

A media scrum at Chelsea's training ground today, though not because journalists were scrambling to get a chat with Avram Grant. As Grant gave his usual Friday briefing in the Cobham ground's main building, the New York Giants were practising 400 metres away in front of a sizeable American media presence. They're borrowing Chelsea's base ahead of Sunday's NFL game at Wembley.

Sizeable is also a fair description of many of the players - their height and bulk make John Terry look like Shaun Wright-Phillips. As they boarded four buses (squad plus entourage numbers around 100 people. Everything's bigger in US sports) the Giants players laughed and joked. Not that you would have been laughing and joking as you drove slowly home through south-west London this afternoon.

In case you were wondering why a police motorcyclist had stopped traffic along the A3, he was one of five outriders assigned to ensure the Giants buses got the players back to central London after training without having to sit in any of that nasty traffic that just occasionally hits London's roads. The New York Giants don't do traffic jams. So other roads were temporarily blocked off to give the Giants a clear wind up the A3 from Surrey.

Fair use of police resources? Unreasonable prejudice, to treat these athletes as if they were heads of state? Or just the way that London should behave towards VIP guests? After all, this is a big weekend for London and the UK. If we want the NFL back, the city should do everything in its power to keep the grins on those Giant faces.