It is a sporting bucket list trip that comes with a Guinness World Record as a momento.
Jacob Barnor from Leeds is one game away from watching every one of the 32 NFL teams at home in a record 84 days.
The 25-year-old will complete his American odyssey at Atlanta Falcons’ home match against the New Orleans Saints on Thursday.
The previous best for completing a full house of NFL venues was 86 days set in December 2015.
Barnor has been documenting his adventure on Instagram and Twitter, taking in the various tailgate parties around the stadiums as well as the action.
“I always had the dream of doing a trip where I would do five stadiums and then I thought it would be cool to do them all over my lifetime,” he told NFL.com.
“I started to research it and I came across the current record of 86 days, 10 hours and 25 minutes set by Alicia Barnhart in 2015 and I thought to myself, ‘that would be so cool’. It was an idea that I thought would go away, but it never did. So, once the schedule came out in April and I realised
it was possible I decided to go for it and here I am.”
His trip has involved continual hopping on domestic US flights to keep up with the fixture list. Barnor, who has been required to collect evidence of his trip with a GPS tracker and videos of the first and final play of every match he has attended, says that he funded his travels using money
that he had saved for a house.
“I’d been saving up for years and I said, ‘if I hit this number that would be my deposit for a house’,” he added.
“I then had this idea and realised it’s probably about the same amount of money. I thought if I don’t do this now, I’ll probably never do it. I can always save up later and get a house – so it seemed to be the more logical thing to do.”
Speaking to BBC Radio 5 Live before the final match at Falcons’ Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Barnor said the trip had been “very tiring” but “even more fun” than he expected.
“I have to submit all my evidence to Guinness World Records and they should give me confirmation of the record within a couple of weeks,” he said.
“But the main thing was the experience – the record is obviously really cool but the main thing has been all the people I’ve met at all the games.
“I’ve really got to start saving for a house after this and this time I’ll stick to that plan.”
