KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Chiefs Kingdom is all over the world, including the United Kingdom across the Atlantic Ocean.
One international fan from England is coming to Kansas City, Missouri, for the AFC Championship for his first ever game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium.
When James Harrison was a boy, he could only watch limited NFL highlights in a show broadcast in England in the 1980's.
"Every team was featured in it, so it was literally a whistle stop tour of you know, three or four minutes of the best plays in every game," he said.
Then his cousin, Nadine Price-Rojas, met her future husband James, in the early 1990’s.
"He [Her husband] said come over to meet my family in Kansas City and I did, and came over for three weeks," Price-Rojas said. "I really enjoyed Kansas City."
She moved to KCMO, and that's when her cousin James' Chiefs fandom began.
"He actually became a Chiefs fan when Nadine first moved over here and she sent him a couple of little memorabilia from here," James Rojas said.
Harrison became a full blown member of Chiefs Kingdom. The time change does make it hard to watch games sometimes.
"My wife has to put up with me silently pacing around at 3 o'clock in the morning, and I did wake her up after the Bills overtime win, so yeah she forgave me," Harrison recalls of his viewing experience from the 42-36 overtime thriller this past Sunday in the AFC Divisional Playoffs.
After the game ended, an idea came about.
"They put it jokingly, you should come out for the game this weekend," Harrison said.
"I said do it, thinking he wouldn't," Price-Rojas said.
Nadine’s sister-in-law helped secure game tickets — she works for Tico Productions, the Spanish radio rights holder of the Kansas City Chiefs and then Harrison booked his plane tickets.
4,324 miles from Heathrow to the Kansas City International Airport, Harrison gets here on Saturday, for his first ever game at 1 Arrowhead Drive.
"I think he's already overwhelmed with how much has happened in this small window, that we've been talking about since basically Sunday night," Rojas said.
"It’s a mission, but you know what, this is a chance of a lifetime," Harrison said.
A mission made possible by family, and the Tico Productions team.
"[To] Bring in other cultures to enjoy the passion of the fans of the Kansas City Chiefs, it makes you feel those goosebumps and I hope he gets to feel that and enjoy every single moment of it," Enrique Morales, the Spanish language radio voice of the Chiefs, said.
Harrison’s journey takes off in a few days, with kickoff to follow.
"You sort of learn, why not, life’s too short sometimes," Harrison said.
His family will be cheering on the Chiefs at home, and up in the Arrowhead radio booth, the broadcast team that helped get him in front of his favorite team, will call what they hope is another KC victory.
The Kansas City Chiefs and Cincinnati Bengals kick off the AFC Championship Game on Sunday at 2:05 p.m., with the winner advancing to Super Bowl LVI.
