Antonio Pierce's stated aim on his trip to London was to "make those guards at Buckingham Palace laugh".

Instead Bermuda's highest-paid sportsman played his part in making more than 80,000 Englishmen and women smile as the iconic Wembley Stadium turned American for the day.

A noisy and knowledgable crowd braved torrential downpours to head to the famous venue as the NFL departed from the Americas for a competitive game for the first time in its history .

And it was a very un-English crowd that hollered, screamed, chanted and shouted for practically all of the three-and-a-half hours it took the Giants to beat the winless Dolphins 13-10 in a scruffy, damp, ugly but eventful encounter.

Technically it was a Dolphins home game, but it was Pierce's Giants that seemed to get most of the backing in a match that was heavily affected by the rain, with turnovers and dropped catches aplenty.

Many of the players from both sides taking part in the NFL's attempt at world domination had to get passports especially for this trip.

Pierce, by contrast, is a relatively well travelled individual, with frequent trips back to his Jew's Bay home as well a visit to Osaka, Japan with the Redskins for a pre-season game with his first NFL side.

But even he looked slightly bewildered at the opening toss as rugby World Cup-winning captain Martin Johnson (a visitor to Bermuda in 2004) and Formula One icon Lewis Hamilton earned bigger cheers than Giants' Eli Manning and Jeremy Shockey.

And he was one of many who didn't look like they understood who John Terry was and why he got booed - and only Pierce would have had any idea of the words to "God Save the Queen".

Possibly the greatest bewilderment for any of the Americans came when the start of the second half was delayed by that quintessential English pursuit of streaking.

A very well-prepared interloper darted onto the field in a striped referee's uniform only to quickly lose the clothes before dancing a naked jig and doing press-ups at centre field.

None of the players seemed to know what to do, but security eventually stepped in to allow the game to proceed as normal.

And the experiment to bring NFL to London seemed to work well. More than a million applications were recieved for the 81,000 seats available at the still relatively new stadium and those who did attend seemed to enjoy the razzmatazz laid on for them.

It wasn't a classic by any means; of the two touchdowns, one was an Eli Manning scramble and the other came late enough that Ted Ginn Jr.'s effort was no more than a consolation.

The rain was heavy enough to force the cheerleaders to put on jackets for the second half but also to force the duelling sides to rely heavily on the running game.

Pierce, who turned 29 on Friday, got himself plenty muddy on the many occasions he launched himself onto the player pile as the hallowed Wembley turf got a fair old mashing.

NFL top honchos will be pleased enough with the turnout but a low-scoring game ending with the Giants kneeling out the final two minutes wasn't quite the fan fest they were hoping for.

One very graphic and heavy sack on Manning got the crowd going a little, as did the fight that followed, but overall it was more of a triumph of marketing than any meaningful attempt to show the Wembley faithful that there is more than one type of football.

Pierce, whose comments about making Guards laugh have been all over the media, would not have enjoyed the manner of his side's victory, nor the weather.

But a win is a win and there is still one more day before they jet back to the Big Apple to see how far his $30m salary goes at Harrods.