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Published: July 23rd 2010
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I have a hangover, Hawkins has been up all night, good job Rustenburg is only 2 hours away and we have a sat nav!
The drive is pretty uneventful, changing scenery though, more mountainous and then a great single lane road across a lake, We could have easily been in Italy. We get to the camp site, based in Kgawse National Park just after 4, perfect for the opening game kick off but the TVs can't find reception since some genius tried perfecting the satelite dishes... So We listen to the game on the BBC World Service with the Brits camped next to us. Football on the radio is a strange concept, the African commentators get over excited and take ages to explain what has actually just happened to create their excitement, which is usually nothing. After the Bafana Bafana goal the camp site is excited, South Africa could actually justify their place in the World Cup, rather than defend their automatic qualification, but Mexico manage to equalise, boo!!!
Luckily the TVs are fixed by the evening so we can watch France draw, a loss would have been better of course 😉
The day of the first England
match, the excitement is too much! I have my face painted by midday, even though the match isn't until 20:30! The campsite is full of English and American fans, and people interviewing. Even some of the wicked campers are doing interviews for x-box. I should be able to get on the TV or in a newspaper with the amount of cameras catching me in my crazy regalia...
The fan fest is a great warm up to our game. Argentina beat Nigeria one nil, but the place is buzzing with England and American fans. We also meet many odd characters. When leaving, no-one in authority knows how to get to the stadium, so luckily some friendly locals offer us a lift. Another awful park and ride system so it takes us over an hour to make a 15min journey, then over 30mins to get beer which looks like it's going to run out before kick off! Great seats behind the goal and the vibe is electric. We're in front of the band so constantly have a chant to join in with. 5Minutes in and Gerrard has scored, the crowd go wild. There are no working screens in the stadium so
we're still unsure if it was a goal and was in fact Gerrard, but we cheer anyway. The thought of winning the world cup is closer to reality!!! Unfortunately Robert Green quashes our dreams with his awful miss of the ball, letting the US score. We leave the game with the elation faded, but at least it wasn't a loss, so we still have one point.
South African organisation is lacking to say the least... We find the park and ride buses and a police woman tells me the bus in front of me goes to the N4 park and ride so I hop on, obviously Hawkins misses it. I get to the car park in record time but no-one knows where pick ups happen from so I stand between the 2 most likely areas. A few women feel nervous of me stood on my own so they get the police to try and help me, they want no part of that so walk off and leave me on my own. I walk to the Police Hut and ask about maps or how to get a taxi to my camp site but none of them have even heard of
the national park which is xxx square kilometres! I wander for a bit more but find no-one I know, then the police woman shouts that I have missed my ride and should stay stood by a lamp post. The car park is almost empty now, so luckily a Brit from the Zimbabwean High Commision gets off the shuttle and asks if I need help. Turns out that this is not the N4 car park at all, even after 5 police men have told me that it is, so I get a bus back to the stadium and then ask again from there. Once again the police tell me to find the right bus for myself, so I eventually find a woman to help me. Back at the right car park I find some campers I recognise and breathe a sigh of relief, all too soon though as they have been stood there for 2 hours waiting for the national park shuttle!!! By this stage I'm freezing, note to self, must buy down jacket. After another 30mins waiting we give up and hail a taxi, he takes us all for 50rand each, we just want to be in the warm. After
a few wrong stops he finally finds our camp but taxis are not allowed inside so we then wait another 30mins for the safari vans to arrive at the gate with the keys. Finally back to camp at 3am, imagine if there was no coordination at all...
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