Midnight marauders, fishes and me

Accoring to City of Cape Town officials (reported by Cape Argus on 14 June), the first match in Cape Town at the Green Point Stadium last Friday (FRA-MEX 0:0) was a sucess, although some areas need to be fine-tuned. Due to the great wheather conditions many people walked from Cape Town Main Station to the stadium (Fan Walk). The stadium shuttle, however, brought spectators to the stadium with high frequency. About 20.000 spectators came to the city via rail and about 11.000 visistos made use of the newly established MyCITI bus system (R 8 for a round trip, = 1 EUR, quite expensive actually). The Metrorail offers special schedules on match days and brings Capetonians to the city and back to the suburbs until midnight (although the frequency of train services is rather low).  I took a minibus taxi to town in the early afternoon (R 5 one tour) and back to Observatory at round 8pm (R 7) as this was the fastest and most flexible transport option. I have never seen so many people waiting at the Cape Town taxi rank before, Bafana days mean without a doubt big business for taxi drivers. Concerning safety issues, I haven’t experienced any unsecure situation. The city centre was a vibrant place and it was just relaxing to walk around and celebrate with the spectators. The executive director of safety and security of the City of Cape Town, Richard Bosman, reported no serious injuries (except of one spectator who fell through the roof of the bus terminus near the Grand Parade following Bafana, Bafana’s first goal), and two arrests for driving under the influence (Source: Cape Argus 14 June).

Later in the evening, I found myself at a friend’s place in Obz where a birthday party framed the second match France-Uruguy (0:0). I guess there is no need to comment this match. Still in an agitated mood, my french friend Margo and me were expecting to see another intresting match. Apparently, we were the only ones who actually followed the game. For many football is still not as recognised as Rugby is, and I got the impression that some don’t really understand that game. But it didn’t damped down the support for Bafana, Bafana…I can only assume that the broad support for the South African national team is rather rooted in the fact that it is South Africa’s (and Africa’s) turn to demonstrate its potentials, its humaity and its diversity, as in a general interesst in football. However, football is in the heart of many people.

The following match days made clear that there also  is a general broad support  for other African teams, such as Ghana (1:0 against Serbia), Nigeria (0:1 against Argentina), Ivory Coast (0:0 against Portugal) and Cameroon (0:1 against Japan). Not so much supported, however, is Algeria. The win of Ghana made many people truly proud and it is going to be an intersting match on 23 June when Ghana meets Germany (4:0 against Australia, but we all know this result does not mean anything;-) in Jo’burg. But also other countrie’s teams gained much support by South Africans, such as England, Italy, Brazil or Germany (as far as I have obeserved).

The Germany match was definately another highlight in the last days. The wheather conditions were rather suboptimal, it rained a lot that day and the night before, really uncomfortable I’d say. Nonetheless, it stopped raining once Margo and I arrived at the Fan Fest, where I expected to meet other Germans and see a great concert of Cape Town’s most popular dj duo Goldfish. Only about 200 hundred spectators came to see the match and defied the cold. Another 2.000 Germans (and Germany supporters) prefered to watch the game at the Paulaner Bierzelt at V&A Waterfront…

On Sunday, my intern colleague Christophe was checking the FIFA ticketing website for available stadium tickets as every day. He was very excited when he finally called me in order to make me aware of available tickets for the match Italy – Paraguy (1:0) at Green Point Stadium next day. Of course, I could not miss out that chance, and I was glad that I  had proper waterproof clothing with me as it did not stop raining cats and dogs on Monday, and even worse it was snowing in the higher regions of Table Mountain.

Funny enough, you don’t get wet in the 3rd category;-) But in fact, the hard rain challenged the host city  Cape Town in some ways. Apart from the fact that on those days many shack areas struggle with floodings, it was a worse case scenario for the event organisation in terms of any expected transport and security issues.  To be upfront with it, everything worked out well. Christophe and I took the stadium shuttle (most of the spectators did so), and we reached the Green Point Stadium (max. 66.000 seats) just shortly later. People were running around in the rain searching for the right entrance to their seats and ignoring the various FIFA sponsor offers on site. Thank to the great stadium design we did have a great view from our seats to the pitch though. It was a great experience and an interesting match loudly enjoyed by 62.500 spectators. Later on, we decided to walk back to the city centre (about 20 min.) although it was still heavily raining. It was expectable that a massive  crowd was heading to the  shuttles. The train from Cape Town Main Station to Obz was packed and I reached my bed short before midnight.

To sum it up, the last days can be seen as a test phase not only for the host cities but also for my research in particular. However, it is time to get ready for another Bafana, Bafana night and to decide on where to go see the match. In this spirit: Ke Nako…

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