Back to reality!

Posted on July 26, 2010 by

I’m now back in Auckland and have just finished my first week at work. I also moved house yesterday and (attempted to) play football today, but I was pretty shocking – no touch, really unfit and in the wrong position half of the time (remind you of a certain Gareth Barry??).

When I last blogged we were in Durban airport watching the All Blacks beat the Springboks. The locals weren’t all that happy about it (especially as I was wearing my All Whites shirt) but they were well and truly beaten.

We got to Jo’burg and dropped our stuff off and went into Sandton and to Nelson Mandela Square. There were hundreds of Dutch fans around with their brass band playing loads of Dutch songs. We hung around there for a bit and then went to watch the 3rd Place Play-Off – we were going to go to the Fan Park, but ended up watching it in the Hostel because Nidge wasn’t all that well. What a great game it was – one of the best of the tournament, simply because either team had nothing to lose so both teams played to win.

The next day (the day of the final) we went to do a Township Tour in Soweto. It worked quite well because Soccer City is in Soweto, so we would be in the right area. Soweto’s a massive place with 3 tiers of living – rich area, which contains good 3-5 bedroom houses which you would be happy to live in (they’re in a decent area of Soweto as daft as that sounds), medium houses which are not all that nice, and then the poor area. The poor area is unbelievable – we went into one and spoke to an old lady and there are 7 people living in a space not much bigger than most people’s bathrooms. It certainly shows the gap between the rich and the poor. Even with the World Cup, I don’t know how the South African Government will change it though. Anyway…

After the Township tour, we visited Nelson Mandela’s old house – the one that he returned to after being freed from Robben Island – and it’s on the same road as Desmond Tutu’s house. It’s the only street in the world that had 2 nobel peace prize winners living on it. We then went to visit the Apartheid Museum which was really interesting and we spent about 2 hours there – however, we had to leave because apparently there was a game of football happening somewhere near by.

We got to Soccer City and the stadium is pretty amazing. I still think that the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban was the best stadium that we went to, but Soccer City’s not too shabby. We got there in time for the Closing Ceremony (which, ironically is before the final) and it looked really good on the big screens. However, we were sitting pitchside, 5 rows up and couldn’t work out what was going on and it looked pretty crap.

Most people won’t have seen it on TV because the production teams chose not to show it, but when Cannavaro came out and put the World Cup onto the plinth, before the teams came out, 1 guy ran from the crowd and tried to pick the cup up. He got about 3 foot short before he was hauled down – in the end, he was less than a foot away from touching it. I kind of wish he had got it!

I don’t really need to say much about the actual game, because I guessed most people saw it. We were sat really close to where Robben missed his 2 one-on-one chances, and if he’d have scored, I’m sure most people would have seen my big HTFC flag on TV.

The atmosphere was awesome, and we were sat at the Spain end, and when Iniesta scored in injury time, the place went nuts. During the tournament, I didn’t really mind the Vuvuzelas, but it did stop fans singing. The only song we heard out of the Spanish fans really was “We’re all off to sunny Spain, a Viva Espana!”, although the “We’re all off to…” bit was changed to “nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah”

We stayed around for the cup to be handed to Spain and all the customary fireworks and stuff, and left before the lap of honour. Some stadiums were a nightmare to get out of – Nelspruit had it spot-on – but it was actually pretty easy. Whether that was because we left early or not, I don’t really know.

We had heard about a bar in Sandton, near the Hyatt Hotel, that had a good range of whiskeys, cognacs and cigars, and we thought what better way of capping the World Cup off with a nice whiskey and a cigar? We got the fan bus to the hotel and thought to walk through there. When we got into the hotel, there were loads of fans behind ropes, we got a free glass of Champagne and couldn’t work out what was going on. After asking a geezer what the craic was, he told us that the Dutch team were staying there and they would be coming back soon. Of course, we decided to hang around, got a glass of wine and an hour or so later they arrived. Here’s Wesley Sneider walking past:

The day after, we had a few hours to kill, so went to the South African Breweries museum. It was alright – once you’ve done a brewery, you’ve done them all, but it was done a bit differently – more like a museum than a brewery – plus you get a couple of free beers, so it could be worse.

Afterwards, we set off to the airport to leave. I said bye to Nidge, he went back to England and I boarded my flight to Hong Kong. I had 3 days in Shanghai, and spent most of the time on the booze. I did manage to get to the Shanghai Expo, which was a bit of a let down. It took ages to get in, all the pavillions have a massive queue (the UK pavillion had over a 3 hour queue) and when you do get in, it’s a few photos about each country, perhaps a video of the attractions and then you’ve left. The pavillions that I went to were Spain (my friend got me VIP access so I didn’t have to queue) and Monaco, Lithuania and New Zealand all because they had short queues. It was pretty disappointing, in fact it was much better to see the pavillions from the outside than the inside!

I got back to Auckland last Sunday, and for the first time ever, I suffered my first bout of jetlag. I struggled to sleep on the plane, so ended up being wide awake at 2am on both Monday and Tuesday meaning that I just took sick leave. On Tuesday, I ended up getting out of bed at 4:30 and answering my work emails. I went back on the Wednesday and it was a bit of a rude awakening being back, trying to work out what had happened in my absence.

Anyway, now I’m back and the World Cup adventure is all over. I’ve had an amazing time, and even though England were crap, the All Whites were the only team in the tournament that didn’t lose! Not many people would have predicted that before it started.

I just want to say thanks for all your emails everyone – if I haven’t got back to you it’s because I honestly haven’t had the time. I’d like to get a reply to everyone later this week, but we don’t have internet access in our new house yet, so will just see what I can do.

Cheers for reading for the past 6 weeks or so!

Paul…

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Cape Town, Victoria Falls and following the Spanish

Posted on July 11, 2010 by

Sat here in Durban airport – feels like I’ve not updated the blog for a few weeks. In fact it was just over a week ago. Loads of stuff has happened since I last blogged, so I’ll start from the beginning.

We got into Cape Town and the first day’s weather was awful. The rain was beating down, leaving us not many options of things to do. We went to the Castle of Good Hope but it’s more of a place to look around in decent weather, as looking at old Dutch porcelain and furniture is not really our cup of tea. We stayed there for an hour or so, got soaked, so went to the District Six museum. This was really interesting, and details the story of when the Apartheid government kicked out the blacks from District Six into the townships so that they could move the whites into the centre of Cape Town. As it happens, nothing was really built, and although the land has been given back to the blacks, no decisions have been made about what to do with it – almost 15 years later.

That night we went to watch the Spain v Portugal match, and although it wasn’t the greatest game, the atmosphere was brilliant, and the best team won through. Cristiano Ronaldo was poor, didn’t touch the ball much and Spain could have won by 2 or 3, although Portugal finally started to attack in the last 10 minutes.

The day after the match, we did the drive down to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope. The drive is beautiful – Chapman’s Peak Drive around the coast is one of the most picturesque you will ever see. That and 19 Mile Drive in California are the 2 best I’ve ever driven. Because of the World Cup, it was pretty busy down in the Cape, but a good trip none-the-less.

We ended up at Boulder’s Beach to see the penguins, although 1 guy decided to cut loose and hide in the local sewers.

The day after, we went to Table Mountain. Nidge went to Robben Island in the morning, but I’ve been there before and didn’t fancy it again, so stayed at the hotel and caught up on some zed’s. We met and then went up Table Mountain. The day was the best day we’d had since we’d been there so it was packed. When we got up to the top, we bumped into a few Huddersfield Town fans – of all the gin joints in all the world…

The day after, we left Cape Town and drove up to Kimberley. It was an 11 hour drive, which we managed to cut into 8 hours. We saw the town’s only tourist attraction – The Big Hole. They must have thought about the name a lot, because it is very aptly named – it is indeed a big hole. It came from when they used to do the diamond mining and they have let it fill up with rainwater since they ceased mining. The museum was actually quite interesting documenting De Beers and the Gold Rush.

We flew up to Jo’burg for the Spain v Paraguay quarter-final at Ellis Park. We wanted to avoid Jo’burg as much as we could, so landed a couple of hours before kick-off and left at 7am the next morning. The game was a decent one, with 2 penalty misses, a retaken penalty, a stonewall penalty turned-down and yet another goal from David Villa. On the way I was sat from a guy who lives in Preston. Turns out he’s originally from Huddersfield and his Dad coached me at football at the YMCA!! Bloody small world I tells ya.

The next day we flew to Zambia, to Livingstone – home of Victoria Falls. We crammed so much into the 2 days there. We went on a cruise down the Zambesi river, then a Lion Encounter with a walk around a reserve with Lion Cubs. We have done quite a bit with wild big cats, and this was one of those moments we’ll never forget.

We saw the falls from the Zambian side, then went in a helicopter to see them from the air. This was pretty amazing and well worth doing. We got some decent photos whilst up there. We then crossed the border to the Zimbabwe side to see the falls from the other side. We got a bit less wet, although not much less – I was on my last pair of trainers so had to walk barefoot with my trainers underneath my mac. Was well worth it, even though for just over an hour it cost us US$120 for visas and national park fees.

Our final day in Zambia, we went to Livingstone Island. This is where David Livingstone first saw the falls and it was named after him. We got some pretty hair-raising photos stood near the edge and at one point had to have our arms held near the edge. The crazy guides went even closer to the edge than we did, and it’s a wonder nobody has gone over.

We then flew to Durban for the Spain v Germany semi final. It was a good game, with a great atmosphere (loads of Vuvuzela’s) and Germany were disappointing. We wanted them to lose (being English and all that) but they didn’t really turn up and again Spain could have overpowered them. We only have Soccer City left (for the final), but the Durban stadium stands up as the best we’ve been to in terms of both design and atmosphere.

Our past 3 days in Durban have been pretty relaxing. We moved out of our noisy hostel 2 days early and moved into a hotel for some R&R. We went to Sea World yesterday, and although it wasn’t a patch on it’s Floridian equivalent, the Dolphin and Sea Lion shows were good.

Now we’re sat in the airport waiting for the flight to Jo’burg. We’ve 3/4 days there, so will try and get a Township tour in, see the Museum of Beer and of course the World Cup final. We’re sat in row E right behind the goal, so have a look for the big HTFC England flag.

I might look to blog just before I leave South Africa and I’ve got a 3 day trip to Shanghai and then back to Auckland and back to work.

Until next time…

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4 matches, 2 cats and 216m of madness…

Posted on July 1, 2010 by

The last time I blogged, we’d been to 2 matches and just met some of the England players. How fast the World Cup moves – those England players are now back in blighty, we’ve seen 6 matches now and have done all sorts around Africa.

After Sun City and Pretoria, we headed to Nelspruit for the New Zealand v Italy match. As most people will know by now the All Whites pulled off a shock result drawing with the Italians 1-1. The atmosphere in and around the All Whites fans was electric, and even they couldn’t have foreseen Smeltz scoring to put New Zealand 1-0 up. After a very dodgy penalty, the Italians got it back to 1-1 and the All Whites defended resolutely to pull off a result that kiwis will talk about for a long time.

We left Nelspruit and went to Blyde River Canyon and then to Kruger Park.

Blyde was pretty amazing but we saw some amazing stuff in Kruger Park. The big 5 were all about – Lions, Leopards, Rhino, Elephants and Buffalo, plus Giraffes, Antelope, Hippo, Zebra and this Hyena with it’s meal of Impala.

We went to watch the Australia v Serbia match in Nelspruit, then the New Zealand v Paraguay match the following day (after an 8 hour drive). The Australia match was a great game with both teams attacking, with Australia notching their first win with a 2-1 victory. The New Zealand game on the opposite hand was a damp squib. Paraguay had to draw to guarantee qualification whereas the All Whites had to win to qualify. New Zealand didn’t have enough up front and Paraguay setup to defend and easily held strong to for a dull 0-0 draw. As it happened, a goal for NZ would have seen them top the group, something which anyone in their right mind couldn’t have foreseen. A good performance from the All Whites and one in which the players and staff can take a lot of pride in and look to build on.

The day after, we drove down to Jo’burg to get a flight to Port Elizabeth. After getting up to speed down the runway, the brakes suddenly slammed on and the stewardesses were shouting “Brace! Brace!”. To say that I was in need of a new pair of pants afterwards is an understatement. As it happened, we came to a complete stop, and we were told that the instruments was malfunctioning. The brakes had binded to the wheels so we had to get towed back into the airport and after a 3 hour wait boarded a flight that had no problems and landed in PE to a round of applause.

We went to the Uruguay v South Korea match in Port Elizabeth and got royally soaked. The game was a good game and Luis Suarez scored a great goal to see the Uruguayans through, although South Korea could have scored twice from one-on-one chances so can only have themselves to blame.

We drove the Garden Route towards Cape Town. We stayed in Plettenberg Bay on the way so that we could watch Germany beat some bunch of old timers 4-1. I hear David Blaine is now upset as his record of doing bugger all in a box for 42 days was beaten by Wayne Rooney. Anyway, can’t say that many of us were surprised with the result. The only positive to come out of it was that we had seriously considered travelling to Bloemfontein to watch the England game, which would have cost around £600 (NZ$1400) including 12 hours driving. So glad we decided against it.

Whilst we saved the hassle there, Plettenberg Bay gave me the opportunity of throwing myself off a 216m high bridge attached to an elastic band. The Bloukrans Bridge Bungy is the highest in the world, and now I have an excuse never to do one ever again. At least it meant that I missed the first 20 minutes of the England game – not sure which was worse punishment.

After Plett, we went to Cango Wildlife Ranch and saw a couple of cats. We got to stroke and see Cheetah Cubs, a White Tiger and Cheetahs. It was amazing to get so close to the these cats and spend time with them. There was loads of other animals in the sanctuary, but that was definitely the highlight and something I’ll remember for a long time.

We then went to Cape Town which is where we are now. I’ll blog about my Cape Town experience later, as this has been a long one. We go to Kimberley, Jo’burg and Victoria Falls next.

Until then!

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I’ve met some English lads recently…

Posted on June 18, 2010 by

Since the last blog update, quite a lot has happened. Nidge has arrived unscathed and we’ve been to 2 live games. We went to the Germany v Australia game and the New Zealand v Slovakia game.

The Germany v Australia match was in Durban and we had category 1 tickets in the Australia end. As we went with my Australian fan mate, Ray, we dressed up in Aussie garb and went the whole hog. The only problem was that the Australian team failed to turn up as they got hammered 4-0. The atmosphere was great and the Vuvazelas were blowing. The Moses Mabhida stadium in Durban in amazing.

I got some good pictures at the match and this is Lucas Podolski scoring the first German goal.

The next day we picked the hire car up and drove the 760km to Rustenburg. One of the highlights of that trip was the Sat Nav saying “In 503km stay right”. You’d be past the Isle of Wight if you did that from Huddersfield! We saw some intesting scenery along the way going up a pass 1,100m above sea level – it felt like we were driving up hills all the 7 hours we were driving.

There’s nothing in Rustenburg and at our lodge it was absolutely freezing. We were in a 2 bed chalet (made from MDF we think!) and it was about 2°c. I ended up sleeping in my jumper the second night it was that cold. We went to see the New Zealand v Slovakia game at Royal Bafokeng in Rustenburg. The stadium is not great and the wind was whipping around and was made it feel baltic. We bought a hat before the game and it was probably the best money we ever spent.

The match wasn’t the greatest game ever – New Zealand were well organised at the back, and had a decent attack, but their midfield was non-existent which let the Slovakians attack more than they should have been able to. Once Slovakia went 1-0 up, we expected it to end that way. However, 2 minutes into injury time Winston Reid rose into the air and placed a header into the far corner to make it 1-1 and give New Zealand their first ever point in the World Cup Finals – a point they duly deserved I think. The kiwis went nuts and the Slovakians deflated.

That night we went to the Rustenburg Fan Fest to watch the Brazil v North Korea game. I think it was around 5°c and probably less with the wind-chill. After a boring first half with no goals, one in which the locals disappeared because it was “too damn cold”, we decided to go back to the lodge. We decided to go back to chalet and stay warm in bed rather than watch the second half in which it finished 2-1 to Brazil.

The next day we went to Sun City which is quite a disappointment. There’s not a great deal to do, the casino is akin to something you’d find in Blackpool and is nowhere near as good as SkyCity in Auckland, so we got bored quite quickly. There are 2 quality golf courses where a round will cost NZ$140/£70 so I wish I’d booked in for a round. However, whilst we were in the clubhouse at one of the courses, this bus arrived:

We saw Wayne Rooney, Michael Carrick, Stephen Warnock, Matthew Upson, Glen Johnson, Ashley Cole, Peter Crouch, Joe Hart, Gareth Barry, Michael Dawson and James Milner. We got ourselves some pictures with some of them and here’s me with Gareth Barry.

Instead of driving back to our freezing chalet, we decided to have a few more beers and stay at Sun City. We watched South Africa get beat by Uruguay in a theatre in Sun City, filled with 4,000 fans blowing their Vuvuzelas and it was a great atmosphere until Forlan blasted one in from 30 yards (albeit with a bit of a deflection).

Today we’ve driven to Pretoria and we are staying in Centurion, right next to the cricket ground.

Until next time…

Paul…

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England v USA – a fan park diary

Posted on June 13, 2010 by

Just been to watch the England v USA game – pretty disappointed in the result, although I guess it could have gone either way. We had quite a few good chances and another day, could have scored 3 or 4, but then again, on another day, the shot that Green pushed against the post could have gone in as could some of the headers so I guess all’s fair. Just disappointing the way that we conceded a goal – would be interesting to see who starts in goal against Algeria next week.

Today was a good day. It started with a few chats to some Aussie fans in the hostel bar, then a wander down to the beach front and watching the first half of the rugby (Aus v Eng – I hear the second half was much better). I wandered down to the Fan Fest and watched South Korea v Greece. Greece were absolutely dismal and Korea were well worth their 2-0 win.

After that came an interesting venture. I met my mate Ray at the Australian Fanatics base. They’re based at Newlands Cricket Ground with a tented village on the cricket pitch. I managed to sneak myself in, and then even got on tele – an English voice around so many Aussies seemed desirable. Quite ironic in that respect…

Anyway, the Aussies were training that afternoon in the Durban Stadium so the Aussie fans planned to welcome them to the stadium. I tagged along, and you can’t fault them because there must have been over 1,000 fans walking the trip to the Moses Mabhida Stadium. The atmosphere was brilliant and even though there was nothing to watch it was a good wander up with them as they were all in good spirits.

I went to watch the England game in the fans fest and there were a few of us about, but not just English and US fans – there’s a lot of Aussies and Germans ready for tomorrow’s match. There’s also seems to be quite a few Argies and of course thousands of supporters of Bafana Bafana (the South African team).

I’m having big problems with my laptop and the internet, so this is actually posted the day after the England game, but hopefully I’ll manage to sort them out and should be online a bit more regularly. Nidge turns up today, and we’re going to watch our first game – Australia v Germany at the Moses Mabhida Stadium here in Durban. Tomorrow we pick the hire car up and start the 7 hour drive to Rustenburg.

I’ve uploaded photos to http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/realbeard including a surprise bump into Robbie Savage in Jo’burg airport.

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Waiting with anticipation…

Posted on June 13, 2010 by

I’m currently sat in Hong Kong airport waiting for the flight to Johannesburg (and subsequently Durban), and I’ll admit it took a while to get excited – to be honest, I think it’s down to the fact that it didn’t really sink in until I got through customs at Auckland airport. Anyway, I’m now dead excited.

It’s about 10pm in Hong Kong, and I’ve been on a flight watching films and messing about on my laptop even though I’m pretty tired. I wanted to stay up so that I could acclimatise so hopefully it should work and I’ll get loads of sleep on the flight to Jo’burg and even though I have a wait of 5 hours until my flight to Durban, hopefully I should be ok and raring to go by the time I get there.

I’ve seen a few All Whites shirts (and the odd scarf) on the flight here, but I don’t think there’s many of us. Could be interesting to see if there’s many on the flight to Jo’burg – I get the impression there could be loads of fans from all sorts of places on the next flight. In fact, I’ve just arrived at the gate for the flight and there’s a bunch of socceroos fans, loads of Koreans and a couple of Danish fans. Maybe they got the wrong connection…

So I’ve got just short of 24 hours travelling until I get to my accommodation in Durban, and got a couple of hours before the first game kicks off. I’m going to aim to get down to the Fan Park for the opener and take in the atmosphere.

Until then…

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Starting to get excited now…

Posted on June 9, 2010 by

There’s only 2 days left until the start of the World Cup and I can’t imagine how Ryan Nelsen and the rest of the All Whites squad are feeling. I’m starting to feel like a kid on Christmas Eve.

In a rare fit of optimism, a friend from the UK and I entered the FIFA ticket ballot 6 months before the victory against Bahrain. When I received news that a ticket to follow New Zealand to the World Cup final was mine, all I needed was a win at the Cake Tin.
I was in the middle of the White Noise section of the crowd down in Wellington, and after the game it took a couple of days to sink in that I would actually be going to the World Cup! Within the week, return flights to Johannesburg were booked. That left accommodation and internal flights & transfers to sort, but this couldn’t be arranged until the draw was made a month later.

I got up at 5am on the 5th December last year to watch the World Cup draw, and as soon as the All Whites were confirmed in Group F, plans were formed and an itinerary was created. All accommodation, hire cars, internal flights and safaris are now booked. The trip involves 13 flights, 12 different places to stay and almost 4,000km in hire cars. Everything has to be planned so meticulously, I feel like I’m arranging a wedding – albeit without a girlfriend making all my decisions!

We bought the 7 tickets to follow New Zealand (or whoever knocks them out), and we’ve also bought tickets to watch Australia group games against both Serbia and Germany. We’ve also got two second round games, which are likely to be France vs South Korea, and a mouth-watering match that’s likely to be Spain v Brazil, Portugal or Ivory Coast. This could be a matchup of two of the favourites for the trophy, and a game I can’t wait for.

Because of the size of South Africa, and with matches at opposite ends of the country, every day has had to be painstakingly planned. We’re going to matches in 8 of the 10 stadiums, missing out Pretoria and Bloemfontein. Even so, we’ve still managed to shoehorn a Kruger Park safari and a trip to Victoria Falls in.

We’ve got into the travelling spirit straight away, and via the power of internet forums, we’ve already agreed to meet up and share rides with 2 kiwi-supporting complete strangers. By placing our itinerary on this website and on the Yellow Fever forum, home of supporters of the Wellington Phoenix, we’ve managed to help a few people out and it also gives us a bit more company. Me and my mate could be ready to kill each other after 4 weeks of sharing cars and hotel rooms!

The next 2 days will end up feeling like 2 weeks, but I guess there are worse problems to have.

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