Since year-round residents and snowbirds living in Vero Beach just for the winter have roots all over the country, it stands to reason that just about every National Football League (NFL) team has some fans here. But with their deep runs into the NFL playoffs, the raucous Philadelphia Eagles fans and the diehard Buffalo Bills Backers have been making most of the noise on the local scene.
For the past few weeks as the football playoffs progressed, those two groups of fans have trekked – peacefully, although with a lot of trash talk – to the Twisted Lime sports bar and restaurant on South Route 1, next to the new standalone Emergency Room.
Last Sunday, almost 100 green-clad Eagles fans, looking much like the famous 700-level crowd at the Eagles’ home stadium, Lincoln Financial Feld in Philadelphia, came away happy after their team thumped the Washington Commanders, 55-23 in the National Conference title game. The loud yells of E-A-G-L-E-S, IGGLES!!!” punctuated the air in the bar’s special room reserved for them.
The fans of the Buffalo Bills, who seem to be better organized around the country in chapters of “Bills Backers,” were even more numerous. They’re a hardy bunch used to attend outdoor games in Buffalo in freezing temperatures, and they had the outside patio for their fan group, which was so numerous that it spilled over onto the sidewalk. The area was a sea of blue and red, the traditional colors pf the Bills, and some fans went all-out with other team insignia, such as blue buffalo hats with horns.
The Bills fans, however, went home disappointed as their team once again lost a heartbreaker in an away game for the American Conference championship to the Kansas City Chiefs, 32-29.
The Philadelphia Eagles will now meet the Chiefs in the SuperBowl on Feb. 9 at the SuperDome in New Orleans.
The Twisted Lime sports bar’s special room for Eagles fans will be open for the big game and the establishments hopes even more fans will turn up, eschewing friends’ and neighbors’ SuperBowl home parties to watch the game on five big TV screens with their fellow-fans they’ve gotten to know through the team’s playoff run.
And the Bills fans will be welcome, too – to drown their sorrows.
Photos by Pieter VanBennekom
