Part two of Trust member Kate Thompson’s South Africa diary reaches the main purpose of the trip, to watch England hopefully make a good start to the tournament
Day 4: Saturday, 12 June 2010
The day of England’s first match and I set my alarm for 4.15. I thought I might have trouble sleeping because I was worried I wouldn’t wake up, but I actually slept quite well, although nowhere near long enough! A bleary-eyed group of 43 assembled for the coach to Cape Town airport, to catch the 7.00 flight to Johannesburg, with the cutely labelled Mango Airways. The flight left and arrived on time, 9.00 in Johannesburg, where we caught another coach to Rustenburg. Because there is nothing to do in the town, Thomson Sport had arranged for us to use facilities at the golf club, where there was a paid barbecue and we each got two free drinks – for some reason restricted to local beer and ordinary Coke. Why not diet Coke you might ask, but I have no idea! This is Africa, which is beginning to be the answer to everything!.
I didn’t buy any more drinks but I must have been the only one who didn’t, and the staff could probably have gone on a luxury cruise from their takings! The barbecue was good, apart from pap (a very bland form of polenta), which would have made good cement or grouting! A few of us decided to walk to the nearby Fans Fest, but I was very irritated to be told that I couldn’t take any food or drink in, not even a bottle of water, because the organisers wanted you to buy their (presumably over-priced) refreshments. So, rather than lose a couple of things I had in my rucksack, I took it back to the coach and tried again. I caught the last few minutes of the South Korea v Greece game and then the first half of Argentina v Nigeria back at the golf club. I bought a nice fleece with a very discreet World Cup logo, which proved nice and warm for the chilly evening to come…..
We left the golf club at 5.00 and arrived at the stadium in less than half an hour – this for an 8.30 kick-off local time. I don’t think I have ever arrived so early at a match, not even when Leicester made several visits to Wembley a while back. We had to queue a bit to get in but this time my carton of drink and cereal bar were not taken off me! Like the only other foreign stadium I have been to, the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, you do the security check and then reach the turnstiles which can be some distance away. I had to walk nearly all the way round the ground to reach my seat, which was by the corner flag to the right of the players’ tunnel.
Three Boys Outside the Golf Club
There were quite a few people I’d met sitting in the same area and the waiting time passed quite well. I was surprised that the fans weren’t segregated but I’m told this is normal for games outside the UK. There were several USA fans around me but they were all very friendly, at least at first! Another thing that surprised me was that only cold drinks were available, so no chance of a coffee, and beer was being sold freely, again something that doesn’t always happen at home – and you certainly wouldn’t be allowed to take it to your seat. What this meant of course was that some people had far too much to drink, with the inevitable consequences.
I tried to tie my flag to the railing in front of where I was sitting, but was told I couldn’t do so, so I asked someone in the tier above to tie it to the railing in front of him – next to one for Derby County and with Forest next to that! There were announcements asking for the flags to be taken down, because they were impeding the television cameras, but this seemed complete nonsense. Some people were prepared to remove them but me – law-abiding citizen that I normally am – told them to ignore it, because I couldn’t see what the authorities could do, and nothing further happened. I noticed later that there were several more on the railings at the lower level. I’m told that other countries do not understand why we want to hang our flags in the stadiums.
Kate’s Flag
There is a running track round the pitch, which increases the distance for viewing and I was surprised that the ground wasn’t full. When the attendance was announced, it was about 5,000 less than capacity. The noise was indescribable; I have never heard such a loud tannoy, which played so-called music before the game, and it drowned any chance of a normal conversation.
And when the game started the dreaded vuvuzelas started up. As advised beforehand, I had taken ear-plugs and wore them for the whole match; this had the effect of somewhat lessening the atmosphere but I decided that protecting my hearing took priority! There were two scoreboards but neither was working, so there were periodic reminders by the announcer of the score – as if we didn’t know!
England 1 USA 1
The game started well for England, with Gerrard scoring in about the fifth minute, but they failed to capitalise on this, and it was no surprise when the USA equalised. Robert Green, the England keeper, somehow let the ball trickle through his fingers – disaster! What is it about England goalkeepers now? We used to have such great ones, two of whom (Banks and Shilton) were of course Leicester City players, at least when their England careers started.
However, Green’s blunder should not have been crucial because England missed a string of chances, the worst coming from the hapless Heskey who should have buried his shot when one on one with the keeper. Tim Howard, the USA keeper, also made some stunning saves. More worrying, there were times when it looked as if the USA would take the lead.
So, a point in the end, but from an England point of view a deeply disappointing result. The worry is that we will finish second in the group (surely we will still proceed to the next stage?) which means tougher games from the quarter finals onwards. We would all rather save Brazil for the final!
Part three of Kate’s diary will appear tomorrow