LONDON — Technically, the Vikings are the road team against Cleveland on Sunday afternoon at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London.

There’s a good chance they still end up having a homefield advantage.

That’s what director of international marketing Keisha Wyatt is hoping given the Vikings’ work to cultivate a fan base across the UK.

Though the Vikings have had something of a cult following since 1983, when they played an exhibition game in London, the franchise has recently made a more concerted effort to connect with fans across the pond.

Members of the UK and Ireland Minnesota Vikings Fan Club gather on Oct. 6, 2024 near Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in London. The sea of purple is what co-founder John Macdonald envisioned when he started the group a decade ago. The Vikings will face the Cleveland Browns in London on Oct. 5, 2025. (Courtesy of Reece Field)

The partnership with the UK and Ireland Minnesota Vikings Fan Club has certainly helped with the growth.

It was founded by John Macdonald and Tommy Beauchene back in 2015. After connecting on Facebook in part because of their shared love of the Vikings, they met up at a pub in London and decided to figure out a way to connect fans from across the UK.

“It can be very lonely being a Vikings fan here,” Macdonald said. “We wanted to make it so we didn’t feel so alone.”

That was more than a decade ago, and the UK and Ireland Minnesota Vikings Fan Club has grown exponentially since then. It sports nearly 3,000 members on Facebook and is approaching 1,500 followers on Instagram.

Together, Reece Field and Rich Dawson serve as the current co presidents. They took the torch from Macdonald and Beauchene and collectively made it their mission to foster a community for Vikings fans to gather on social media.

Whether it’s been facilitating a group chat during the games that offers a space to provide commentary, organizing meet ups where fans can gather to watch the game together or even planning group trips to go watch the Vikings playing in the Twin Cities, the goal is to help grow the fan base as best they can.

“The most important part for us is bringing fans together,” Field said. “We’re continuing to grow and we want to keep giving everybody a place to enjoy the experience with each other.”

The secret sauce is their inclusiveness.

“We put a lot of time and effort into making sure the community here is the best and most welcoming it could possibly be,” Dawson said. “We’ve taken that Minnesota Nice attitude and sort of tried to replicate it as much as we can.”

That has hooked other members like Ella Burt and Jess Price, who are a part of the leadership board and consider the the UK and Ireland Minnesota Vikings Fan Club as family.

“I met up with everybody for the first time and I was like ‘Now I’ve got a community of people,’” Burt said. “Everybody was so friendly that I wanted to be a part of it and I wanted to help make it bigger and better.”

It also helps to know there are a bunch of people going through the same experience.

“There are some games where we’re getting up to watch at 1 a.m. here and it can feel a bit crazy,” Price said. “You feel less crazy getting to connect with people that are watching, as well.”

As much as the UK and Ireland Minnesota Vikings Fan Club have enjoyed the time spent with each other, they are thrilled to have other fans from across the world come into town for the game between the Vikings and the Browns.

Meanwhile, the Vikings are continuing to do grow their brand in the area, evidenced by the various activities they’ve put on this week, as well as the fan festival on Saturday afternoon at Battersea Power Station in London.

As much as the Vikings are hoping fans who have flown in for the game show up, they are also hoping fans who live locally will attend.

“This space is going to tie in more of the local community,” Wyatt said. “Our hope is that we can really have our brand reach that audience that we haven’t necessarily tapped into yet.”

The reach for the Vikings will extend beyond London. They have been digital billboards across England in Leeds, Manchester, Birmingham and New Castle this week, and the Vikings will maintain a presence across the pond even after they return home.

“We will continue to boost our brand within the local community,” Wyatt said. “My role is figuring out, ‘How do we keep that momentum going?’”

As for the UK and Ireland Minnesotan Vikings Fan Club, the plan is to host a tailgate before the Vikings play the Browns at a couple of pubs outside of Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. It was a smashing success the first time they hosted the tailgate a few years ago.

“We did it we thought, ‘Oh we’d be lucky if we get maybe a hundred people,’” Field said. “Then people turned up in the thousands. I felt like a child on Christmas opening the door. I turned and saw a sea of purple.”

That was exactly what Macdonald envisioned when he and Beauchene met up at the pub in London once upon a time.

“I’m astonished every time I go to a big event we’re putting on,” Macdonald said. “It’s amazing what we’ve managed to pull off. It’s grown so much. It brings a tear to my eye watching all these Vikings fan and seeing what this little club that we started has become.”

That should help the Viking this weekend in London, and beyond.

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