England v Algeria

England v Algeria


We leave St Georges and drive into the centre of Cape Town, ignoring all the Park & Rides because we don’t want to suffer the difficulties we had in Rustenberg. Eventually we arrive at the Waterfront and park next to the Green Point Stadium. The Fans walk is heaving with England fans and flags are draped over every available bit of space. Queues are building at every restaurant and pub, so we trot off to something I spotted the day before in the shopping centre, a restaurant that has an open balcony overlooking the harbour and we find some comfy chairs, a great view and settle down with a beer to watch our group opponents play out their game. We cheer loudly at every goal and constantly reappraise what result we need from this one for England to progress, eventually agreeing that the 2-2 draw is fine by us, so we are pleased to see the US grab the last goal. A further round of beer and 9 Ostrich burgers puts us in a good frame of mind for what is to come. I find my Ostrich burger a bit of a disappointment and rather tasteless although I appear to be the odd one out, everybody else is very happy.

We head back to the Batmobile and wrap up for what we are led to believe will be sub zero temperatures, more information that proves incorrect as we all complain about the heat! There is a lack of signage around the ground so we follow the crowd and get stuck in a rather large scrum at one of the security checks. You’ll have to excuse me for using the term ‘security’ because it’s all quite laughable, they make a show of doing it but are so naive. The bags we carry are not searched and the body scanners bleep away but nothing is checked. The security people employed for this World Cup have all gone on strike and there has been mass demonstrations, but for this game its being controlled by the Police. The fans around us are very keen to sing all the England loyal songs, but yet again it’s the ex-pat England fans from SA who are making all the noise. I bump into Graham White one of the FA’s security team and he asks about our experience of getting access to the stadium, a 40 minute wait and no signage don’t help as he tells me some of the turnstiles are actually empty! Inside the stadium we find our seats, put up our flags, grab a beer or two, chat to the England fans that we know and recognise and catch up with how they are progressing around SA. Mark Chappell from Rotherham tells us how he was robbed at knife point by 4 guys in Rustenburg and offers some advice on how to avoid it.

The atmosphere is building and we are pleased to be in a proper football stadium again after the disappointment of Rustenburg. There we had a crowd of 40,000 and the service was appalling and here we have a crowd of over 60,000 and you can get food, beer and access the toilets, it’s so much improved. I am impressed by the amount of England fans and flags on display, much more like a proper England crowd than the one we had in the previous game. There are no vuvuzelas in our section and we do manage to get some songs and an atmosphere going. The game kicks off and it’s a disappointment from start to finish, we are truly appalling, one of the worst games I have ever witnessed from an England team, so the less said the better. We exit the stadium and there is no smiling from anybody, no desire to hang around and have another beer, so we make our way back to the accommodation. The journey back is reasonably quick, we avoid the main routes and use the coast road and arrive just before midnight. A bit of telly, a beer and a glass of red wine drowns the disappointment and then we trudge off to bed. Tomorrow we become tourists again.