Avier Saldivar turned a group photo into a proposal during the Traveling Texans gathering at London's Tower Bridge, dropping to one knee in front of Leslie Mejia as fellow Houston fans looked on. She said yes.
The moment was captured in a photo caption from the Houston Chronicle, which described the scene plainly: Saldivar slipped a ring on Mejia's finger after proposing during the Traveling Texans group photo at Tower Bridge, and she accepted. The same gathering drew a crowd of Texans supporters posing together at the London landmark, all part of the team's fan programming ahead of its game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Toro joined the celebration during a London weekend built almost entirely around turning an away game into a full-blown fan festival roughly 4,800 miles from Houston.
A Tower Bridge Date That Depends on Who You Ask
The Tower Bridge gathering took place Saturday, Oct. 17. The team's own published London schedule, posted on houstontexans.com, listed the Traveling Texans city photo at the Tower Bridge Viewing Point for Saturday, Oct. 17, from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. But a report from the London Post placed the same photograph at Tower Bridge Overlook on Oct. 17, at that identical time window, while the Chronicle's own photo caption dated the group photo to Saturday, Oct. 17. All three accounts place the gathering on Saturday, Oct. 17.
Whichever day it landed on, the Tower Bridge stop was just one piece of a packed itinerary. Fans also gathered at Redwood Pub, rebranded for the weekend as the Texans Bull Pen London, according to a report from abc13.com. Toro and the Texans Cheerleaders made an appearance there too, with the cheerleaders teaching a line dance to the gathered crowd.
Team Leadership Pours Beer, Mascot Rappels a Tower
Texans Chair and CEO Cal McNair, along with Hannah McNair and former wide receiver Andre Johnson, handed out beer to fans at a pub near London Bridge, per the same abc13.com account of the weekend's festivities. It was a hands-on touch from ownership for a fan base that organizers clearly wanted to feel at home overseas.
Toro had already made headlines earlier in the week by rappelling down the ArcelorMittal Orbit, the nearly 375-foot tower in London's Olympic Park, embracing fans at the bottom once he touched down, the Chronicle reported. It was one more stop on a mascot's marathon schedule that also included a pep rally with Toro, the Houston Texans Cheerleaders and MARC, as listed on the organization's official fan itinerary.
A Small but Devoted Fan Base Abroad
The Texans' following in the United Kingdom is modest next to teams with deeper international roots. The Chronicle noted that the UK Texans fanbase is tiny compared with those of more established teams such as the 49ers, Dolphins, Raiders and Bears, yet the supporters who made the trip to London turned out in force for the full slate of events.
The proposal and fan festivities served as a prelude to Sunday's kickoff, when the Texans were scheduled to face the Jaguars at Wembley Stadium at 8:30 a.m. Central time, according to the team's official game preview at houstontexans.com. The matchup marked just the third international game in franchise history, following a 2016 loss to the Oakland Raiders in Mexico City and a 2019 trip to Wembley, where Houston beat Jacksonville 26-3.
