It was a swell party. It could not be otherwise. Five years after the city was all but destroyed by Hurricane Katrina, five years after the Louisiana Superdome had been taken over by 16,000 homeless and hopeless refugees, the team that played there, the New Orleans Saints, had won the greatest prize in American sport. They had won the Super Bowl for the first time in their history.
Mark Brunell was nearly 40 when he went on to the pitch and saw his wife, Stacy, and his father, David. All three burst into tears.