read.graph: vertex labels in GML file?

I can successfully read a GML file using read.graph (e.g. those at
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/netdata/ , the football data set in
particular). However, I don't seem to be able to read the vertex labels
that are in the GML file; or maybe I am, but I cannot get at them?

I suspect I'm not reading the original labels since the command

get.vertex.attribute(net, 'name', index=V(net))

just provides a numeric list of vertex names rather than the vertex labels
as they appeared in the original GML file.


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Cheers,
=Dave