The drama of Ghana v Uruguay

Yesterday was supposed to be an anti-climax, or so I thought. Last night’s quarter final between Uruguay and Ghana was perhaps the least attractive fixture in the last eight. Worse still, this could have been an England match but the dismal showing of Rooney et al had robbed me of the dream of seeing the Three Lions in action at the business end of the World Cup. I was not happy. But I was so, so wrong.

After watching the Netherlands – Brazil game in a bar (many South Africans have adopted other teams since Bafana fell at the first hurdle), we hurtled down to Park Station to catch the Metrorail to Soccer City, a service free for ticket holders. Jo’burg City Council have been encouraging fans to use public transport to ease match day traffic congestion so we obliged. The problem was that there was insufficient parking for the demand, forcing many to park outside on the streets. This prospect would usually be met with apprehension and in some cases outright refusal but the World Cup has created this temporary cocoon of safety over Johannesburg. Watching throngs of people of all race, class and gender walk the streets of Johannesburg at night just does not happen normally but this time people were happy enough to leave their cars on the pavements while the car guards made a tidy profit. Crammed onto the train, the unusual kept coming. Admittedly a big generalisation, it was bizarre to see the middle classes use the form of transport usually used by the black working class to commute to work. As with last year’s Confederations Cup when I regularly heard comments about how they’d never been in a minibus taxi before, many had clearly never used the train system before. At one level, the World Cup is bringing groups of people together in unusual situations but such is the temporary nature of such an event. The Metrorail network does not serve the need of the middle class northern suburbs and so I cannot see these people continuing to use public transport after the tournament.

Crowds pouring out of the train station

I was a very confused man last night. As an Englishman, I wore my New Zealand football shirt and had my face painted with the Ghanaian flag!

 

Am I English, Kiwi or Ghanaian?

Reaching Soccer City, the crowds slowly wandered towards the gate. The almost deafening blasts from the vuvuzelas combined with the songs of fans created an exhilarating backdrop to the spectacular calabash stadium.

Approaching Soccer City

Sat down in our seats just before the national anthems (this time I didn’t miss the first twenty minutes of a Ghana game). What was glaringly obvious was that virtually all the fans inside were supporting Ghana. Out of the 84,000 people there, there could not have been more than 2,000 Uruguay fans. As Ben and I discussed throughout the game, we’ve never witnessed such a partisan crowd for a non-host game. Even Bafana v Mexico in the opening game had a sizable number of Mexican supporters. Ghana maybe thousands of miles away but last night was a home game for them. One flag opposite us claimed that "we Kenyans support Ghana". With few supporters coming from either country, the South African spectators got fully behind the African team. The vuvuzelas were back in full force, after a slight lull in previous knockout games. I put this down to the fact that few South Africans would know the words to Ghanaian or Uruguayan songs – the vuvuzela is the lowest common denominator.

 

The teams line up

The game itself didn’t start too brightly, especially for the Ghanaians. However, they sparked into life towards the end of the half and Sulley Muntari’s cracker in injury time sent the crowd into ecstasy. This worked to our advantage as people were still celebrating into the break meaning the beer and food queues were considerably shorter. This was great news as we were so “looking forward” to yet more bland, rubber sausages®, branded sugary drinks© and mediocre beer™.

Is this food?

The crowd were in jubilant mood in the second half until Diego Forlan’s free kick found the back of the net in the 55th minute. The crowd were stunned. Chances came and went at both ends as the game went into extra time. Whenever Ghana threatened the Uruguayans goal, the vuvuzelas surged up, willing the team on to become Africa’s first World Cup semi-finalist.

And then it all went crazy.

At the death in extra time, Uruguayan striker Luis Suarez produced a cynical handball on the line to prevent Dominic Adiyiah’s header from crossing the line. The crowd jumped to their feet, vuvuzelas blasting and flags waving as Suarez was sent off and the penalty awarded. The crowd were already in party mode believing that this was Ghana’s moment but they could not believe their eyes as Asamoah Gyan’s spot kick hit the crossbar. Sharp intakes of breath, heads in hands, slumping back down into the seats; the fairytale ending was shattered. The penalty shootout that followed could have caused any number of heart attacks. All credit to Gyan for stepping up to take the first penalty for Ghana and banishing the failure of a couple of minutes previously as he slotted home his spot-kick. The despair of John Mensah’s saved penalty was quickly supplanted by the euphoria of keeper Richard Kingson saving the next Uruguayan penalty, but this was short lived. Adiyiah missed his and Sebastian Abreu calmly converted to send the South Americans into the last four.

Ghanaian striker Kevin Prince Boateng ran around the pitch in an attempt to get the crowd to cheer for Ghana one last time but the stadium emptied remarkably quickly.

Soccer City emptied in a matter of minutes

However, our night had not finished yet. Taking a wrong turn, we ended up in the middle of the celebrations of the Uruguay fans. Initially annoyed that they had knocked Ghana out, I found that I couldn’t begrudge Uruguay their victory, such was the passion and enthusiasm of the fans. I wasn’t so impressed with the way the South African Police Service handled crowd control. Dressed in their Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle-esque body armour and wanting us to leave the stadium, they pushed us into the crowd with their batons, forcing us out. I thought that the best way to avoid a crush would be not to push people in the crowd, or maybe I’m being naive? The police did partially redeem themselves when they pulled out a drunken fan from our train carriage, who seemed to determined to start a fight.

Uruguay fans celebrate as the police behind us push us into the crowd

Having jumped on the last train to Johannesburg, it took a very long time as it slowly made its way back to the city but this didn’t spoil one of the best footballing experiences that I’ve ever had.

Football withdrawal symptoms

The two barren, football-free days are finally over. Wimbledon has been a poor substitute, especially as I just cannot get excited about Andy Murray and his ultimately doomed attempt to be the first British male champion since Fred Perry in neolithic times. Fortunately, I had to pick my cousin up from the airport to begin a week crammed full of the beautiful game (although there have been times this tournament when 'beautiful' has been stretched to the limit - NZ v Paraguay anyone?).

The Norweigan Bjorn Heidenstrom cycled and hitchhiked from Oslo to Johannesburg and collecting football shirts from various clubs along the way. These have been made into a giant shirt, which is currently on display in Randburg, Johannesburg. The shirts range from the big global brands such as Manchester United and Chelsea to smaller provincial clubs in the Spanish lower leagues (and Coventry City!).

Try and find a wardrobe big enough for this...

In between cruising the roads of Johannesburg and taking photos of the football stadiums in the city, we stopped for a couple of beers in Soweto in the afternoon winter sun. Across the road, a stall sold football scarves, hats and flags. The waning support for Bafana was evident as the Bafana scarves were cheaper than the Ghana ones. Ghana has become Africa's football darling. This morning, my local pub was flying the Ghanaian flag in a show of African solidarity. This area was also witness to some of the xenophobic violence unleashed on African immigrants that hit Johannesburg a couple of years ago but now they're supporting the foreigners. One minute they're different, the next they're "one of us". 

Displaying a Ghana flag doesn't necessarily mean that attitudes towards African immigrants are going to change

If Ghana beat Uruguay tonight, there'll be a lot of sore heads tomorrow! Which, incidentally, is where I'm off to now, via the pub to watch the Brazil v Netherlands game.

 Football designs on the Soweto cooling towers

Yet for all the fun and laughter of the the World Cup, just remember that not all is rosy in South Africa...

The World Cup is unlikely to have touched the inhabitants of these homes...

Falling on their swords

After I made a few wrong turns and missed the turn on the highway (I blame my navigator!), we eventually made it to Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria for the second round clash between Paraguay and Japan. The security checks at these games have become increasingly laughable. The sight of police officers in body armour are in contrast to the apathetic body searches conducted at the gates. I've walked straight through before without anybody questioning me. This time, they made a cursory check of my pockets but seriously, considering the amount of things I've seen smuggled in to PSL games in peoples' socks, you'd have thought that security would have cottoned on by now. But they haven't. If the metal detectors went off, the stewards didn't seem too interested. FIFA also told us that we would need our ID along with our match tickets but I've not needed it once.

The giant Japan shirt in the stands just before kick off

This time I managed to avoid eating rubber sausage as they still had some pies. Much better than the last pie I had at a football match (Cowdenbeath v Clyde - Scotch Pies have a lesser meat content than the rubber hot dogs!).

If the game was dull, the Japanese fans were in full voice. In the stand below me, one of the hardcore Japanese supporters was constantly on his feet, megaphone in hand (does FIFA really allow them in the ground?) and leading the supporters in chants of "NIPPON! NIPPON!" A fixture featuring two "smaller" teams was unlikely to have many travelling supporters but South African fans came out in force, most of whom were supporting Japan as the underdogs.

 Leading the Japanese support

I clutched my Japan scarf tight as I watched the penalty shootout unfold. Agonizingly, Yuichi Komano's spot-kick cannoned off the crossbar and the Japanese fans around me collapsed in their seats in despair. With Paraguay coming out on top 5-3, the first thing these fans did was to stand up and applaud their team as the players walked over and reciprocated the sentiment. Tears were welling up in their eyes as they struggled to come to terms with the end of their World Cup journey. With my sparse knowledge of a few Japanese words, I shook their hands in commiseration, stopping to hug one fans for whom defeat was clearly too much. They cheered up enough for some photos but stayed behind, shell shocked. Strangely enough, I was more cut up about this defeat than Bafana or England getting knocked out. I hope I get the opportunity to watch Japan live again.

Celebrating despite defeat

So all my teams are now out: Bafana and NZ in the group stage with England and Japan falling at the second round. I'm supporting Ghana now, although I fear that may just be the kiss of death.

My lucky shirt didn't work. Need a new one.

My weekend of football continued yesterday with the eagerly anticipated England v Germany clash followed by my trip to Soccer City for Argentina v Mexico. While at times I've been self-analytical over my wavering support for England, it only took Three Lions pumping from my car radio yesterday morning to get worked up; that and the wearing of my lucky England shirt. Clearly it's not lucky anymore...

Together with my friend Chris, we drove down to Soccer City extremely early in the hope of watching the first game on the big screen. You would have hoped that the organisers would have had a little foresight and erected big screens showing the first game and attracting a captive audience to sell their overpriced junk. But no. I jumped out of the car at the gate (we went straight through security without being questioned) and asked if they were letting people in. Other fans had the same idea but had to wait outside for thirty minutes until the gates opened. I jumped back in the car and we zoomed back into the city to a bar in the city. The national anthem came on and I stood up and sang. A few odd looks but not as many as when I was surrounded by Australians earlier in the week! Unfortunately, Chris was supporting Germany and as the goals flooded in, my heart sank. Staring into my beer, I conceded defeat (graciously I thought). Luckily Chris was a good winner.

Zooming back to Soccer City, we bought some food in the car park. Not the suspect hotdog that I've come to loathe but pap and steak, food synonymous with the local game. It was great to sink my teeth into that once more but having to pay R40 was a little too much (it usually costs R25-30 on a regular match day). It turned out that the FIFA police have told all the informal traders what they must charge, although why, nobody knew. As with other traders that I've spoken to, business has not been what they expected with some struggling to break even. The positioning of stalls has not helped as some are hidden around corners in the dark. Asking the women who served me whether she had many foreign customers, she shook her head. Chris kept asking if they had any beer but no-one did. They have been forbidden to sell beer, probably because it wouldn't be that watery American beer that is served in the ground. The local flavour of a football match can be experienced on match day but you have to search for it. The traders have to register with the city council and have had to go on training courses on food hygiene. Almost as bad as homeowners having to learn how to make cappuccinos if they want to accommodate foreign tourists... Even one Mexican trader selling Mexican wrestling masks had to have accreditation. Yet the ticket touts still operated unhindered.

Reaching my seat (three rows from the front, middle tier, behind the goal), the atmosphere felt incredible. Arguably one of the best that I've experienced as I was sitting just above the mass of Argentinian fans singing and dancing in such an impressive stadium. It was such an exhilarating rush. The vuvuzelas were still there but there were being incorporated into the songs. I may not have much love for the Argentinian team but the fans were brilliant. If Argentina lose to Germany in the quarter finals, the tournament will be poorer for it.

 Argentina fans celebrating in front of the camera

Curiously, I happened to look down in the stand below during the first half to see the police escort the "number 1 fan" of the SA club side Bloemfontein Celtic out of the stand. He'd clearly not been in the correct seat but did not take kindly to being told that he was in the wrong place. I think that this encapsulates a key problem that faces the Premier Soccer League and the Football Association here should they wish to capitalise on the current popularity of the sport in SA. All the PSL games have unreserved seating, which puts off many people from going but when reserved seating is introduced, many local fans often ignore it while the stewards seem unable to do anything about it. There's a balance that needs to be achieved to attract new fans while keeping the current ones.

S

Soccer City before kickoff

I'm over England's defeat now. It might help that I have three more games to go to!

Ghana progress as I make slow progress in the traffic

The African dream lives on in Ghana after the Black Stars beat USA 2-1 after extra time thanks to Asamoah Gyan's 93rd minute strike. Ghanaian supporters dominated the stadium as many South Africans chose to support the one remaining African team in the tournament. Wearing Bafana shirts but waving Ghanaian flags, this was the most colourful World Cup environment that I have been in so far. The stadium was buzzing after the final whistle and I was glad to see the look of disappointment on Landon Donovan's face. If he's going to mess up my World Cup plans, they're going to get knocked out of the tournament. It's karma!

 Landon Donovan equalising from the penalty spot

However, as with much of my work, the game was secondary to what was happening around it. We left Johannesburg just after 4:15pm, giving us just over four hours before kickoff. We thought that would be enough time to get to our seats seeing as Rustenburg is only 120km away. We were wrong. Getting trapped on the N4 toll road, we trundled along in the queue but, as always in this country, there were idiots who chose to zoom down in the emergency lane, which cause chaos on the way up to the England v USA game a couple of weeks back. This time round, there was a chunky Afrikaans guy in a Toyota Hilux driving slowly up this lane to prevent this from happening. We drove alongside and infuriated the impatient South African drivers but most of them gave up and fell back into line. There were one or two idiots who thought that for the sake of making up a few places in the queue they would drive into oncoming traffic and almost cause horrific accidents. It was satisfying to see them pulled over by the traffic cops! We spent the hours stuck in traffic thinking up ways to get back at these drivers; the best was buying a tray of eggs and throwing them at the windscreens but we didn't pass anywhere that sold eggs.

 Ghanaian fans celebrating during extra time

The park and ride was fine we got onto our bus easily. Problem was that the bus got stuck in traffic itself. Sat in my seat as the match clock ticked over 20 minutes. Not happy. We missed the first goal. Fortunately we saw two more and got extra time.

 The media circus makes a beeline for the Ghanaian fans after the game

If there were a few issues getting to the stadium, it was dramatically worse coming back. The game finished at about 11pm and we got to the pick up point 20 minutes later. That was the last thing that went right. There were no queues, just piles of people pushing and shoving to make up a couple of yards of ground. As time went by, people got more irritated and annoyed. The Englishmen in front of me were complaining that this was the side of the World Cup that the TV cameras never picked up on.

"This system is s**t!", one of them eloquently stated. And it was. Rustenburg park and ride was efficient during the 2009 Confederations Cup but something has gone wrong since.

One of the Americans behind me decided to "blame it on all the Canadians who are here. All two of them!" Some tried to joke but those Englishmen got increasingly grumpy. Some aspect of this World Cup have been incredible, but this was a farce. They should have had this all ironed out last year. Clearly not.

Eventually (sometime past 1am) we made it onto the bus. If that was bad, the traffic on the highway stumbled along. I got home at 5am, six hours after the game had finished.

Got a spare ticket?

I'm heading up to Rustenburg this afternoon to see Ghana v USA. It's an easy choice to decide which team to support; the last African team in the competition or the team that finished above England and messed up all my plans (it's Ghana just in case you're still wondering).

I went to Sandton yesterday to pick up today's match ticket to find masses of fans outside the ticket office and across the road. Thanks to Landon Donovan's goal after 91 minutes against Algeria, England have ended up facing Germany in Bloemfontein tomorrow rather than Ghana in Rustenburg today. England fans were left with tickets that they no longer wanted and were trying to offload them, through official means or otherwise. With few tickets available for England v Germany, these fans had to resort to offering excessive sums of money to those lucky few gripping these golden tickets as they walked out. No-one was prepared to part with them however. I hope Landon Donovan realises what trouble he's caused.

While all this was happening, the Dutch national team walked by. Shame I didn't have my camera on me.

The black market for tickets is rife. Even though FIFA have directed fans to return tickets to them for a refund minus a 10% fee, many are choosing to ignore this. I have been offered tickets for numerous games although I haven't accepted them due to lack of money and there's only so much football I can go to!!! Ticket touts operate under the noses of the police who rarely act on this. A few have been charged, put on trial in one of the World Cup courts, and imprisoned but most operate freely. With group game tickets sometimes selling for a lot less than face value, part of me wishes that I hadn't bought mine through FIFA. Could have saved myself a lot of money.

Got a great weekend of football ahead - Ghana v USA tonight, England v Germany on the big screen before Argentina v Mexico at Soccer City. I wonder how the Argentinian fans are going to react to me wearing my England shirt...?

Inflatable kangaroos, cheese dogs and metal giraffes

In the car on the way to Nelspruit for the Australia v Serbia game yesterday morning, there was an Englishman, a South African supporting England, a South African who had lived in England and a South African who would rather watch paint dry than watch an England game. At one point in the journey, we became concerned that England manager Fabio Capello might have gone AWOL:

Capello travelling in the wrong direction

Forced to open the emergency beer supply when we reached our log cabin 40km outside Nelspruit, we were soon back on the road into the city to watch the England v Slovenia game before going to the stadium. Walking into the pub, we realised that were in a tiny minority; the place was swarming with Australians. None of us had envisaged that football/ soccer was so popular in Oz and were surprised to see so many Socceroos fans.

 Spot the England fan (who then put on an Australia jacket...)

Instead of following the masses, we were adopted by the small number of Serbian fans; my friend's knowledge of some Serbian swearwords and his Nemanja Vidic t-shirt only endeared us to them.  Once we got talking to them, we became confused by their Australian accents. Some of them were Serbs living in Australia, supporting their country of birth against their country of residence although they had absolutely no problems with this.

 Improving Anglo-Serb relations

God Save the Queen played out over the speakers as the players lined up. Standing in front of the TV, I was belting the anthem out only for me to realise that few people were singing along with me. I looked up to see a pub full of Aussies staring at me in amusement. I was equally amused to see a couple of them joining in with me. The Serbs explained to us that they wouldn't usually support someone who has bombed them (!!) such as the US but seeing as were going to support Serbia that evening, they were willing to return the favour and make an exception for us. Relief at the final whistle turned to frustration as news that Landon Donovan had scored deep in injury time for the US to beat Algeria 1-0. It was wasn't so much that this meant that the US had finished top of the group (although that was annoying) but that it meant that England would not be featuring in the quarter final at Soccer City for which I have tickets. I was not a happy man.

Taking the park and ride bus to the stadium, the four of us sat at the back. Admittedly with a few beers inside us, we started out with chants of "SER-BI-A! SER-BI-A! SER-BI-A!" From this, we thought it would be a 'good' idea to pretend to be Serbian, having conversations in a pretend language while pretending to understand this nonsense! Our attempts at a Serbian accent was less Serbian and more Borat but we were still fooling the locals. Bursting into a rousing rendition of Shosholoza was met with incredulity by the other passengers with the man in front in shock, exclaiming: "They know Shosholoza!" As far as he was concerned, the Serbians had made the effort to learn some of their culture, oblivious to the truth. We continued in our broken Serb-lish with Borat accents to chant anything to do with South Africa: "BA-FA-NA! BA-FA-NA! PI-EN-AAR! PI-EN-AAR! MO-KOEN-A MO-KOEN-A!" The passengers were loving our enthusiasm. We were clearly a hit!

Leaving our alter egos at the stadium gate, we sampled the culinary delights on offer in the stadium. Our choice was between hot dogs, cheese dogs and chili dogs. Whether these had ever seen an animal before was dubious and combined with the cheap white bread, it made us feel sick rather than satisfied. We did find a stall selling boerewors rolls at an inflated price but it was too late. We also refused to queue for 30 minutes for a well-known watery American beer. It really does destroy the South African identity of match day.

 Mmmmmmm! Tasty...

Mbombela Stadium from the outside is very impressive with the support struts made to look like giraffes while the seats inside are arranged in a zebra print. I only hope that the tourists realise that there's more to South Africa than animals.

 

Mbombela Stadium, Nelspruit

The Aussie fans heavily outnumbered the Serb fans. Most just had scarves and flags but inflatable kangaroos were also popular. Not conforming to stereotypes now, aren't they?! If only there had been an Aussie fan in a prison jumpsuit...

 Skippy the inflatable kangaroo

The game itself was secondary to everything around it. In the first half, stewards had to get the police in to calm down the hardcore Serbian fans who refused to sit in the correct seats. The stewards were helpless and just flapped around until the police came. It was a shame as it killed a little of the atmosphere where I was sitting. Was great to be sitting on the front row though.

 Serb fans before kick off

How Serbia lost that game I don't know, although a goal incorrectly ruled offside and an Australian handball in their area that was missed might have had something to do with it. A couple of Serb fans really did not like the outcome of the match and started shouting abuse at their players. One player had clearly had enough of this and came over with the intent of starting a fight although nothing came of it. Both teams were knocked out of the tournament, with Ghana and Germany progressing from the group. While Serb fans were despondent...

 A solitary, depressed Serbian fan

... the Aussies were in more jubiliant mood as the players did a lap of the pitch, thanking their supporters for making the long journey.

 Aussie fans staying behind to cheer their team

Cheers to the guys who I travelled with for an awesome road trip!