Let it begin

I’m sat here in the warm South African sun reflecting on the last few days of what has been, so far, frustrating, exciting, annoying, tiring and altogether everything we expected it to be. The location here is excellent, a farm nestled in the African bush north of Johannesburg, on the edge of the Cradle Of Mankind and reached by driving about 4km of the main road down dirt tracks, over numerous speed bumps, past fields full of horses, springboks and other associated wildlife before negotiating the tight security associated with this part of the world.




Our party of ten finally assembled in the arrivals hall at Johannesburg amid the confusion of the whole world arriving en masse at the same time. We of course come from the far flung reaches of the UK, Doncaster, Sheffield, Southampton, and Newcastle and now we mix and merge with supporters form Brazil, Mexico, USA, and other fascinating locations. Everybody has a story to tell as we queue, not for the first time, in the airport to collect our match tickets. Car hire negotiated, mobile phones arranged, money collected we head out of town. Jo’burg is a modern city, full of new car showrooms, fast food places and brand new roads, but the further we travel the more we see of the real South Africa, the walled and fenced communities, razor wire by the mile and the unfortunate collection of tin shacks that make up the townships in this area.

The drive to Rustenburg takes 2 hours, not on the best of roads but still quiet enough for progress to be made. The closer we get the more excited we become, the noisier those dreaded vuvuzelas become and the more chaotic the general scene appears to be. We settle for the park and ride amid the collected nations of the world, what a strange crowd this one appears to be! On the journey to the stadium we treat the bus to a noisy rendition of God Save the Queen and any other England songs we can think of. The Americans attempt a USA, USA chant but it’s so very tame and weak in comparison to what we offer. The scene around the stadium is, what I’m learning quickly, is very African. There is a show of trying to do things the right way but failing miserably. Security is literally ridiculous; the body scanners that are in place are deemed superfluous as we are allowed to pass our bags, phones and cameras around the scanners so that the alarms are not set off! The queues for food and beverage are not organized, just heaving masses of people hoping for the best.

The crowd is a strange one, what you would consider are normal England supporters are here but in lower numbers and the crowd is a pseudo English mix of all nations dressed in the flag of St George. The songs are drowned out by the noisy and patently pathetic vuvuzelas that achieve nothing but make noise, not the promotion of atmosphere but the destruction of typical football partisanship. Let’s hope they never become part of English football culture.

The final whistle sounds and the Americans celebrate a 1-1 victory whereas we are despondent with our 1-1 defeat! We attempt to meet up after the game with great difficulty and try to make our way to the buses for the return journey to the park & ride station, there’s only one problem there are no buses, only streets full of people searching for buses. The millions of officials that were present before the game have now vanished into thin air. And it’s not just us; every single individual is looking for the non-existent buses. We walked what seemed like miles to find a bus which would take us where we wanted to go and by now we are 2 hours beyond the final whistle. Another hour later we finally manage to exit the car park and set off on the 2 hour journey back to our farm, arriving at 3am. We say a quiet goodbye to two young American supporters we met along the way who have two hours to spare before they leave for the airport at 5am. Rather them than me. I finally manage to climb into my bed and don’t have time to contemplate the tough result we suffer in Rustenburg before I’m gone to the world. Roll on the rest of our adventure!