Trail of the Lion King

Bloemfontein is a five hour drive from where Jen and I live in Gauteng and if I thought sensibly about it, it’s probably a bit too far to travel to for just an overnight stay. Thing is though, I’d seen that there was a First Division football game taking place on the Saturday, followed by a Premier league match on the Sunday.

What made it more attractive was that the First Division game was between the bottom two teams, Roses United and Blackburn Rovers, teams that when the inevitable relegation to the Second Division happens may as well have vanished from the face of the Earth.

With that in mind, we set off early for Bloemfontein. It wasn’t a particularly interesting drive, plenty of open spaces with not much going on in them. Jen spotted some giraffe in the distance but I saw nothing more exciting than the odd bit of roadkill.

After five hours of driving I’d had enough and the prospect of continuing on another half an hour to the Kaizer Sebothelo stadium at nearby Botshabelo held little appeal. Or more specifically driving there and then driving another half an hour back into town after the game held no appeal. It was time for Plan B, which was to check straight into our hotel and then walk the few hundred yards to the Free State Stadium for some Super Rugby instead.

Free State Stadium.

The hotel that I’d booked us into advertised itself as being inside a zoo, with a view of elephants through the room windows. We didn’t see any of those, mainly because we had a big tree outside of our window blocking the view, but also because I don’t think there were any elephants.

We had a look through the window at the end of our corridor and were rewarded with some sort of nondescript bok with just the one horn. And I don‘t mean one horn like a unicorn, I mean one horn because the other had fallen off at some point.

The situation was redeemed by fighting squirrels. There were three of them, although I suspect just the one was the troublemaker. The hotel would have been better off advertising them rather than elephants as I was tempted to move to Plan C and just watch the squirrels scrap it out for the rest of the afternoon.

“Get into ’em”

Good as the squirrels were, we set off for the rugby and after a walk through a shopping mall that seemed a lot further than the hotel had claimed, we arrived at the Free State Stadium. I asked at the ticket office for tickets in a drinking stand with shade. “No problem“ she said and promptly sold us two sixty rand seats in the sun.

Even with tickets, it wasn’t easy to get in and we were turned back at the first gate we tried on account of my camera. Apparently it was too big. I wouldn’t care, but it’s not some big professional effort. It’s not even a proper DSLR, it’s just a poxy bridge camera.

We politely accepted the decision and made our way along to the next gate where we avoided the bag search. There’s always a way around these little hurdles.

After discovering our shaded seats were in the sun we found an alternative spot in the shade and waited for the teams to emerge through a guard of honour provided by a dozen bikers. I bet the groundsman loved that. Maybe they could have farmers with their ploughs next week.

Ideal for the playing surface.

Anyway, with the game underway and a beer in my hand everything eventually felt right with the world. For those interested in the stadiums, this one was built in 1995 for the Rugby World Cup. It also staged half a dozen games at the 2010 football World Cup, including the game where Germany beat England 4-1. We were sat at the end where Lampard’s disallowed ‘goal‘ happened.

We were supposed to be sat in the stand to the left.

We’d seen the Chiefs the week before in Pretoria and they’d looked a decent side on that occasion. They struggled in the first half though  as the Cheetahs, who had never beaten the Chiefs, seemed to be able to score at will.

The game looked over at half-time with the home side 34-10 ahead.

A sole first-half try for the Chiefs.

It was a different story after the break as the visitors gradually clawed their way back into the game. At one stage the Chiefs had reduced the deficit to a single point before a couple of Cheetahs penalties gave the home side a seven point advantage.

The Cheetahs were still seven points up with just thirty seconds to go on their own line out. Instead of killing the ball and then booting it out once the hooter went, they somehow contrived to lose possession to the Chiefs who kept the ball alive for another three minutes before scoring under the posts.

The view towards the other end.

The easy conversion gave the Chiefs their second last-ditch draw in a week and resulted in a stunned silence as the crowd left the stadium. We made our way back to the hotel where there were still no elephants and the squirrels seemed to have made up with each other.

Despite the rugby season being well underway these days, I’ve been trying to prioritise football and cricket. Mainly because I prefer them, but also because I can save the rugby games for the winter when the other two sports are taking a break.

At the weekend though, I’d spotted that the Loftus Versfeld stadium in Pretoria was hosting games on consecutive days, with a Super Rugby match on Saturday afternoon and then a Premier League football game on the Sunday. Pretoria is only about three quarters of an hour drive from where Jen and I live, but I booked us into a hotel close to the ground so that I could have a few scoops during the rugby.

See, two games.

It was an easy enough walk to the stadium from the hotel and despite all the scare stories that I’ve heard about wandering around in Pretoria it seemed safe enough. A few of the locals were renting out their drives for parking, others, perhaps not so local, were charging for guiding cars onto any available bit of land and then ‘looking after them’.

There were plenty of stalls selling food,mainly steak and burgers, whilst the main access road to the stadium had a variety of stands selling Bulls merchandise. Hats with cow horns on seemed a popular item.

Plenty of flags and shirts too.

I’d heard from a fella at work that there were restrictions on drinking in your seat at the rugby, but I remembered that when I was at the Ellis Park game last year that there were people in a posh section in front of us who seemed to be consuming an unlimited supply of beer throughout the game. With that in mind I booked seats in the most expensive part of the ground, paying 450 rand a pop compared to the 70 to 150 rand everywhere else.

We got into the stadium an hour or so before kick-off and it turned out our seats weren’t so special after all, they were close to the tunnel but weren’t sectioned off or anything. Two rows back or a few seats along we could have had a similar view for a third of the price.

The view from the not so cheap seats.

At that point we headed off to the bar only to be told that not only could we not drink in our seats, we couldn’t drink anywhere in the stadium. How could that be right?. It’s rugby, you are meant to watch it with a pint in your hand. And so to recap. I’d booked a hotel room for the night to avoid having to drive and then paid three times over the odds for my seat only to be sat drinking Coke. Wonderful.

Loftus Versfeld is quite an old stadium, dating back about a hundred years, but with plenty of modifications over that time, notably a few dozen executive boxes, which you won’t be surprised to hear were packed with people partying. Gits.

You can see some of those boxes in the background.

The first half was pretty tight with the Chiefs going in at the break just a single point ahead. Star of the show was Bulls lock Victor Matfield who, after two years in retirement, has taken up playing again. It will be interesting to see if he regains his Springbok spot.

In the second half the Bulls put a bit of pressure on the visitors and with five minutes left were a comfortable twelve points ahead. It wasn’t enough though and a couple of tries, the last of which was converted from the touchline with the final kick of the game, enabled the Chiefs to snatch an unexpected draw.

Chiefs on the attack.

There was better news on the beer front as when we left the ground we discovered a field with a bar in it. I made up for the lack of drink inside the stadium by having a few cans as we listened to some 70’s tribute band blasting out Lynyrd Skynyrd and Creedence Clearwater Revival hits.

If they’d played anything by Mott The Hoople it would have pipped that ELO tribute act from a couple of months ago to gig of the year so far. They didn’t and so found themselves in second and last place.

Finally, a beer.

So, lessons learned. Turn up early next time, drink outside and then buy a seventy rand ticket for the East Stand, which is the one closest to the bar in the field.

Well, after a summer of uncertainty as to where we would end up we finally got to South Africa, where I’m working on the construction of a bloody big power station. It’s way off being finished and so I hope to be here for long enough to see plenty of whatever this part of the world has to offer.

Jen and I had already been in the country for a couple of weeks before we made it to a match. We hadn’t been entirely idle though. Apart from the usual settling in stuff we’d managed a couple of hikes including a walk around the Tswaing Crater. It’s a big hole in the ground caused by a meteorite or something. We’d seen a similar crater earlier in the summer in Iceland, funnily enough. This one was bigger though.

No old bikes or shopping carts in this one either.

We’d also paid a visit to a Cheetah Sanctuary. That was ok, particularly the bit where we got to pat a tame one. Or a drugged one. They had wild dogs and vultures too, although we weren’t allowed to pat any of those. Never mind, there should be plenty of time for that sort of thing in the future.

He’d have your arm off, apparently.

Good as all that wildlife stuff is, it’s African sport that I plan to be writing about. Mainly football, I’d expect, but I’m planning on watching a fair bit of cricket and rugby too when I get the chance. It’s rugby that we’ll start things off with and a Currie Cup game at Ellis Park between Golden Lions and Griquas.

Ellis Park is the place where South Africa won the World Cup in ’95. That was the tournament where Jonah Lomu trampled over half the England team in the semi-final. He didn’t manage to do the same in the final though and you might remember Nelson Mandela in his Springbok shirt handing over the trophy to Francois Pienaar.

Remember this?

We’d been staying in one of those posh gated communities near Pretoria and so it wasn’t much of an effort to get to Johannesburg. One thing that struck me on the drive over was the number of people walking alongside the roads. A lot of the women tend to balance boxes, no-handed, on their head as they stroll along. The sight of one dressed in grey had me slamming on my brakes as I waited for the inevitable camera flash.

As we approached Ellis Park we encountered the parking attendants. I’m not sure how many of them were official and how many of them were just dressed up in a high visibility vest so that they could guide people into parking by the side of the road for a fee.

We’d pre-paid for parking and so just flashed the ticket to be waived on towards the stadium. On one occasion I ignored the fella, causing him to run fifty yards after the car to try to see the ticket. We were eventually directed to the car park of the stadium next door and had a five minute walk from the car. It all seemed safe enough as we made our way into the ground.

Plenty to eat.

We had eighty rand tickets for the West Stand. That’s near enough a fiver. Cheap enough to expect a decent crowd I’d have thought, but no. There were only about a thousand people there, although the season was drawing to an end and I got the impression that the Currie Cup wasn’t as much of an attraction as the Super 14 competition or whatever it’s called these days.

The crowd near us.

Those that were there were entertained pre-match by cheerleaders. They were a bit porkier than the ones I’d watched at the sporting events in Korea, but a little more gymnastic rather than just decorative.

So, what else can I tell you? There are fellas who serve drinks and ice creams at your seat. I had a bottle of something called granadilla. No idea what it was. Maybe something similar to pineapple. The other point of note was that people booed when the kickers were taking their penalties and conversions. I didn’t think rugby fans did that.

An action shot.

And the game? Well, I’m fairly sure that the visiting Griquas team had already been eliminated from the competition, whilst if the Lions won this final group stage fixture then they would progress through to the semi-finals.

Whilst it looked at times as if the Lions players wouldn’t be too unhappy about losing and concluding their season that afternoon, they did eventually win to take their place in the semi-finals and delay the start of their holidays by another week.

It was an easy introduction to South African sport for us. Pre-paid secure parking, a low crowd in a reasonably safe area and ice creams brought to our seats. I doubt it will be like that every week.