After spending some time in Swaziland Jen and I returned to South Africa for a few days at Kruger. I’m generally happy just driving around even if we don’t see much, but on this occasion we did pretty well for wildlife.
A fella passing by very kindly tipped us off about some lions a few kilometres away and whilst there were a few cars at the scene we were still able to get within a few metres for some photos.
Later that day we stumbled across a spotted hyena and some cubs. They weren’t all her own judging by the variances in size but she kept an eye on them all despite the youngest looking to be no more than three weeks or so old. The next day we returned to the spot on a night drive and saw more of the clan.
All too soon though it was time to head off to Pretoria for a flight back to the UK. I hadn’t been expecting to see any more football but as luck would have it we stumbled across a game whilst driving.
Hellenic FC seems to have had a chequered history. They were formed in 1964 but it looks as if they went bust for a while before having a successful season in the fourth tier a couple of years ago. Or maybe it was the fifth tier. It’s all a bit vague to be honest and I’m not actually sure that they even have a senior team at present.
They do have an under seventeen team though and it was their match with Tshwane South College at the Belgrave Square Park that I called into. There’s not much to see stadium-wise, a brick building with the changing rooms down one side and a couple of small structures that I suppose you could call stands.
The game was already into the second half with Hellanic two-one down but as I had stuff to do I only stayed for twenty minutes or so and can’t tell you how it ended up. Not that it matters. Still, it was pleasing to unexpectedly get to another ground.
That’s it for the time being as far as African football is concerned. It’s been a fascinating couple of years with forty-six games spread over thirty-eight different stadiums and seven separate countries. The cricket and rugby have been pretty good too, whilst the time spent in the national parks and game reserves has been fantastic.
It looks as if Australia will be our location for the next couple of years, so hopefully the A-League is worth watching. Before that though we’ve got ten days in England with the Boro games against Brentford and Wolves to look forward to.
Tags: Belgrave Square Park, Hellenic FC
Trail of the Lion King 
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