Swift’s city ties no ‘Wildest Dream’
At Sunday night’s playoff football game between the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs and the Buffalo Bills, the biggest star at Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park could be sheltered in the warmth of a private suite.
Pop music icon Taylor Swift is rumored to attend the game on Sunday in support of her boyfriend, Chiefs All-Pro tight end Travis Kelce.
As Swifties anticipate the arrival of their queen, the biggest pop star in the nation returns to a region with family ties.
Dunkirk was once the home of Eleanor Mayer, her great-grandmother, in the early 1900s. She was the daughter of Julius and Delia Mayer — great-great-grandparents of Swift — who ran the Mayer Music Store that was located on the 200 and 100 block of Central Avenue.
Eleanor Mayer later married Lance Gardner Finlay, of Cleveland. They had a daughter, Janet Eleanor Finley in May of 1919, and a son, Robert Bruce Finlay, in November 1920.
Robert Bruce Finlay is Taylor Swift’s grandfather. He married Marjorie in March of 1952. Robert and Marjorie had a daughter named Andrea, who later married Scott Swift, Taylor Swift’s father. As Swifties are well-aware because of one of her many chart-topping album titles, Taylor Swift was born in 1989.
Swift’s family lineage was confirmed to the OBSERVER by an area resident who is an expert in genealogy. Swift’s connection to this county was first noted in a “Discovering Buffalo One Street at a Time” article that was featured at the website in the summer and forwarded to the OBSERVER.
Different this time from previous meetings in the postseason between the Chiefs and the Bills, the game will be held in Orchard Park, rather than Kansas City. That means not only will Bills Mafia provide home field advantage, but it also means Swift will likely be visiting the region for what is believed to be the first time in many years.
Swift has attended 10 Chiefs games this season, including the Week 14 meeting between the Bills and Chiefs in Kansas City that ended in a 20-17 Bills victory.
The Chiefs hope that Swift’s favorable standing with “Karma” will result in a Chiefs victory this time, as a controversial call against Chiefs wide receiver Kadarius Toney wiped out a go-ahead touchdown on a lateral from Kelce because Toney was clearly lined up offsides before the snap. The result sent superstar quarterback Patrick Mahomes into a tirade that left a blemish on his “Reputation” and left many fans wanting to say, “You need to calm down.”
For the Bills, Sunday will be an opportunity to finally exercise the demons of past playoff heartbreaks that could’ve fueled their own chart-topping album. The Bills have twice been eliminated by the Chiefs in the postseason during the Josh Allen-Patrick Mahomes era that has taken the league by storm.
The contest is sure to draw the attention of fans across the nation, whether cheering in support of one of the two titans of the league, viewing as a fan of the sport in general, or tuning in for a glance at the 2023 Time Person of the Year, Taylor Swift.
But for Western New Yorkers, many of whom view the Bills as a symbol of their regional significance atop the list along with chicken wings and beef-on-weck sandwiches, Sunday’s game provides another claim to fame. While she will likely be wearing Chiefs “Red,” Taylor Swift’s allegiances first belonged to Western New York.
So what do you say, fans?
“… Ready for it?”