Trail of the Lion King

This game was quite a late addition to our trip. Originally we’d just planned on seeing the two games in Natal but when another of the FIFA sales windows opened I couldn’t resist buying a couple of tickets for Italy’s clash with Costa Rica in Recife.

Initially I didn’t give much of a thought as to how we’d get from Natal to Recife, after all it’s only one hundred and eighty miles. Once I’d delved a bit more into it though it turned out that there weren’t any flights that fitted with what had to be a day trip, there isn’t a train connection between the two cities and the bus wouldn’t get us there in time for kick-off.

That pretty much left driving and so when we passed a car hire place in Natal a few days earlier we popped in and ended up not only with a car, but with the fella who worked there agreeing to drive us there and back for eight hundred Brazilian reals. That’s around two hundred and twenty quid, which struck me as fair enough, particularly when I recalled that having to get a taxi home from a Boro game in Blackpool nearly thirty years ago cost over a hundred quid.

On Friday morning we left Natal at around half past seven. The first three hours or so were relatively easy enough and we made good progress passing pineapple stalls, people riding donkeys and any number of cows wandering around and, I suspect, up to no good.

Did you know that cows bear grudges against other cows? They have little cliques too. That’s worth remembering next time you see one stood by herself looking miserable whilst the rest of the herd are frollicking around on the other side of the field.

One we arrived in Recife everything slowed down. We followed the signs to the stadium through heavy traffic for two hours before we finally broke free of the congestion and arrived at the Arena Pernambuco which is situated just off a dual carriageway in the middle of nowhere.

There wasn’t anywhere to park and the decision to hire a driver paid off as he was able to drop us at a service station ten minutes walk from the ground.

There’s the stadium.

We had Category Two tickets for behind a goal, but unfortunately it was the goal that was right around the other side of the stadium and with kick-off approaching we had to get a move on.

Matters weren’t helped by one of the security fellas suspecting that Paul’s sun cream was some sort of explosive device. Paul was initially asked to prove that it wouldn’t go off with a bang by eating some of it, but managed to negotiate a compromise whereby he would apply some to his nose.

“Just eat it”

We reached our seats just as the teams were walking out onto the pitch. They were pretty good, high up but under cover. Whilst it didn’t look like there was any prospect of rain it was better to be sat in the shade.

I’d estimate that as the game kicked off a third of the seats were unoccupied. I’m not surprised though as we can’t have been the only ones who underestimated the time necessary to get from Recife city centre to the stadium. There were still people arriving over an hour into the match and I suspect quite a few spent the entire game still in their cars and inching slowly forward.

We had a couple of Costa Rica fans behind us who spent the entire game abusing the opposition, the ref and, I suspect, their own team with shouts of “Puta”. I’d love to have heard how they’d have behaved in a dispute with an actual prostitute.

The view from our seats.

Whilst the beer was easy to buy early on, by half-time the queues were prohibitive. Fortunately we were able to take advantage of the bloke doing the rounds with a barrel on his back. Well done, FIFA.

By this time Italy were a goal down and Ballotelli had been subbed. That was a shame as there is rarely a dull moment when he’s around. Even with him off the pitch, I kept casting the odd glance over towards the Italian bench in case he decided to let a few fireworks off.

With their star man withdrawn Italy couldn’t manage an equaliser. The win took Costa Rica through to the next round and briefly stunned the two fellas behind us into silence.

Fans behind the goal.

Our journey back to Natal was little different to the outward trip. Two hours of crawling along followed by three hours of high speed. The main difference I suppose was that we had a couple of crashes. After the second of them our driver revealed that he’d only had two hours sleep the previous night. Oh good.

And so that was it for Paul and I, another World Cup over and done with.

I rarely think in any depth about much at all, but I gave some some thought as to the way in which the four year World Cup cycle marks the changes in your life. When we went to the Germany in 2006, I travelled from my apartment in Ferrol, Spain.

By the time South Africa rolled around four years later, I was living in Seoul, South Korea. I liked enough of what I saw of South Africa during that 2010 tournament that when the chance came to live there I took it and have been in Gauteng for the last nine months.

I doubt that Jen and I will still be in South Africa when the next tournament takes place in four years time but I’d like to think that wherever we are, I’ll be making my way from there to Russia for the 2018 World Cup.

When we bought the tickets for our two World Cup games in Natal it was before the draw had taken place and so in theory we could have seen any teams. Apart from Brazil that is, who as hosts had their route to the final mapped out. Oh, and the likes of Scotland of course, and all those other those diddy nations that don’t go to World Cups anymore.

As luck would have it we followed the Ghana v USA fixture with another clash of the titans, Greece against Japan. Whatever. It’s a World Cup and so it’s all good.

We’d had two days off between the games and that meant seeing a bit of Porta Negra. It’s a seaside town just outside of Natal and I suppose you could liken it to what Seaton Carew is to Hartlepool, albeit without the penny arcades. Less dog shit too.

Porta Negra has got a decent beach that was popular with surfers. I suppose when you are on that top corner of Brazil you’d expect to get some pretty big waves coming in.

Just like Seaton.

There were also plenty of bars and restaurants in Porta Negra and with three games a day to watch on the telly we got around a fair few of them. The food that we had varied from those lumps of meat that are skewered on a large metal spike and carved at your table to tapioca from a street stall.

The atmosphere was good everywhere, nowhere had any hint of trouble going on and the people couldn’t have been friendlier. I like that about World Cups.

Another game, another bar.

When it was time to leave for the Natal stadium we decided not to bother with the shuttle bus and instead accepted a lift from a fella who offered to drive us there for a total of thirty reals. That compared very favourably with the hundred reals each we’d paid for the shuttle three days earlier, although we did still have to find our way back to Porta Negra after the game.

The wannabe taxi driver dropped us close to the stadium at around three thirty. Our plan was to watch the England v Uruguay game at four o’clock on a big screen inside the ground and it all worked reasonably well. The gates didn’t open until bang on four and so we had half an hour or so of milling around outside with mainly Japanese fans. We did see a few Greek supporters but they were heavily outnumbered.

Mount Fuji hats were popular.

It didn’t take long to get through security and we were soon watching the England game on a big screen. It was sponsored by Budweiser but luckily we weren’t forced to drink their beer. There was a Brazilian beer, Brahma, on sale as well and so we stuck to that.

I thought FIFA managed the whole alcohol situation extremely well. Simply selling the stuff puts them ahead of UEFA who only serve non-alcoholic beer at the Euros. They also allow you to drink your beer in your seat. English FA take note. To round things off they have beer fellas walking around with a barrel on their backs for when your cup is running low.

So, whilst they might be incompetent and corrupt they have got the odd mitigating point.

Suarez behaving himself.

As expected England lost again and we made our way up to our seats. This time we were down the side of the pitch, almost at the back of the lower tier. These were Category One tickets costing a whopping one hundred and seventy-five dollars each.

Despite the price our seats weren’t far enough back in the stand for the roof to cover us.You’d think Category One would at least mean you stayed dry. It briefly rained a couple of times during the match, just long enough each time for me to put my coat on and then have to take it off again within a few minutes.

The view from down the side.

Aside from the neutrals, it was mainly Japanese fans in the seats around us. There was also a big section of them behind the goal to our right. Most of them brought and blew up plastic bags in the way I recall Lotte Giants supporters doing in Korea, although this lot didn’t loop the handles around their ears and wear them on their heads like the baseball fans.

I only spotted a couple of small pockets of Greek fans. Maybe the financial crisis is still taking its toll over there. Or maybe they just didn’t fancy their team’s chances.

Whilst I hadn’t seen anyone selling tickets outside before the game, a fella in front of us was trying to shift a couple for the upcoming Japan v Columbia tie. It didn’t look like he had any takers though.

That’s the way to advertise.

As for the match, well you might have seen it. Japan did more of the attacking, but struggled once they got inside the box. As soon as Greece went a man down they dropped even deeper and settled for the goalless draw.

Japan fans to our right.

Paul and I were sharply away after the game in the hope of beating any further rain, We picked up a lift in a minibus taxi for twenty reals each and forty minutes after the final whistle we were back in Porta Negra.

It’s that time again. The World Cup. As I’m someone who finds it hard to drive past a kickabout by the side of the road without stopping, the only place for me to be this time of year was Brazil.

My flight from Johannesburg departed just as the tournament was kicking off and by waiting until the final boarding call I was able to watch the first half of the Brazil against Croatia game in an airport bar. I suppose, with the flight going to Sao Paulo, I shouldn’t have been surprised when there was a collective groan as Marcelo scored his own goal to put the hosts behind. Understandably there was a more positive reaction on the plane when the pilot eventually revealed the final score.

My onward destination was Rio, where I met up with Paul. He doesn’t watch much football these days, but he knows a good time when he sees one and a World Cup tends to fit the bill.

We didn’t have any live matches scheduled for Rio and even failed to make it to the Fanfest on the Copacabana Beach, choosing just to watch the games in a bar instead.

The first of many.

We did have a wander along the Copacabana before the football started and a brief paddle in the sea.

Just like Ronnie Biggs.

In the early morning at the beach there are still people sleeping rough on the sand. The police didn’t seem interested in moving anyone on and in addition to those who looked like they regularly spent the night outside there were many more who were probably new in town for the football.

There were also plenty of sea-front joggers, getting their training in before it got too warm. I was a little surprised to see Stuart Pearce run past me, although not as surprised as I was when he calmly overtook anyone who got in his way rather than scything them down from behind.

That saves a hundred and fifty quid a night.

Paul reckoned that you can’t visit Rio without going to see that big Jesus statue. Surprising really, as he already had a very good view of it from his top floor hotel room. As I’d been allocated a room with a view of a storage yard I was quite happy to head out and have a look before the football started.

It’s a complicated process to get all the way to the top, involving three separate buses or taxis and two different ticket offices. We lost patience before the end and so viewed it from a distance. It was close enough.

A rare view from behind.

Our first live game, Ghana v America, took place on a Monday night in Natal and so on Sunday afternoon we took the three-hour flight north. Natal didn’t look very impressive as we were driven through it after dark in a taxi, but that was okay as we were actually staying a little further along the coast at the seaside resort of Porta Negra.

The surrounding area had been affected by torrential rain over the previous few days, resulting in landslides, sinkholes and the cancellation of the Natal Fanfest. We didn’t see any of that though in Porta Negra, mainly because we spent the early part of Monday watching football on the telly in a bar.

A different bar.

Our hotel had organised a shuttle to the game. I didn’t see any Ghanaians on it but there were plenty of USA supporters. I’m fine with Americans. I’m even married to one.  Maybe I’ve just got lucky though as the ones on the bus spent the majority of the journey whooping and hollering.

They even cheered as the bus set off and applauded when it arrived in the drop-off car park. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such excitable adults. If they ever win the World Cup I imagine a few of them might spontaneously combust. It would probably have been kinder to all concerned if someone had put eyeless hoods over their heads until we got there to try to calm them down.

We had a ten minute walk to the stadium, past a couple of busy bars. There wasn’t much in the way of security forces, certainly nothing like the presence that the UK media had focused upon. There rarely is though. I don’t think I’ve ever been to a football tournament that wasn’t preceded by the suggestion that we were all likely to be murdered or locked up. Or both.

Natal security.

Admission to the stadium was well organised, with a barriered queuing system funneling people towards the gates. The game was sold out but there were fans outside trying to offload spare tickets. I didn’t see anyone buying but I got the impression that prices wouldn’t be high. They looked like fans trying to get rid of extra tickets they had been stuck with rather than touts after a profit.

Whilst I might have been a little less than impressed with the hoo-ha on the bus, I couldn’t fault the USA fans for their enthusiasm for dressing up. Most were in team colours, the exceptions tending to be those in fancy dress, notably a top quality Vegas-period Elvis.

The Arena das Dunas.

It seemed like there was rain in the air and after witnessing the downpour on the telly during one of the earlier games at this stadium I was quite worried about the potential for drowning during the game. The tickets that we had were only Category 3 and so I wasn’t too confident that we’d be under cover.

The stadium has a roof, of sorts, but it appears to be more for show than for the benefit of the fans. If you were in the back few rows then I dare say you’d be fine, but most other places and you’d be in trouble. It looked okay in the poshest section where the roof will have covered the FIFA delegation and media seats.

We got lucky with our cheap seats, if you can call ninety dollars cheap. We were behind a goal but right up in the top corner. If it were to rain and providing the rain just came vertically down then we’d just about get away with it.

For those who like looking at tickets.

I’m amused at how much the rain bothers me these days. It wasn’t always like that. I remember going to watch the Boro at Oldham in the eighties and it pouring down all game. I was stood in the uncovered terracing behind the goal wearing a sheepskin jacket that may just have been briefly fashionable in certain circles, albeit fifteen years previously. That coat must have gained about three stones in weight by the time I got back to my car and when I removed it from the boot the following day it had dried solid and could stand up by itself.

Our seats were part of what looked like a temporary stand and so I assume that they will be removed after the World Cup to give Natal a stadium of a size appropriate for its needs. That’s fair enough. A full smaller stadium always beats a half-empty larger stadium for me.

View from the top corner.

As you may have seen on the telly the US took a very early lead. I did wonder how the fans from our bus will have reacted. Less than a minute into the World Cup and they’d already scored. Maybe they thought the scoring in football might turn out like basketball after all.

Ghana struggled to get back into the game until someone finally realised that what they needed was a Middlesbrough player on the pitch. With twelve minutes to go they unleashed Albert Adomah. Four minutes later Ghana had equalised.

“Boro Boys, we are here”

I like it when I see a Middlesbrough player at the World Cup. Paul and I were there when Stewie Downing come on as a sub against Trinidad and Tobago in Germany and then again when Chris Killen (remember him? Thought not) turned out for New Zealand four years ago.

Unfortunately Albert’s influence was fleeting as America went straight back up the other end and scored the winner. Typical Boro.

Whilst we were driving around Lobatse looking for the New Lobatse Stadium we stumbled across a game taking place on a pitch that we subsequently discovered wasn‘t too far from the ground we were after. It was a little out of town, or at least the part of town that had shops and offices. It did have cows wandering along the roads though, so that makes it the best part of town.

Sunday stroll.

I find it hard to drive past a match of any sort without stopping for a while and so I parked up and had a wander over. The pitch wasn’t up to much, not unless you were planning on planting potatoes, but they had nets. They also had around fifty people watching, suggesting that apart from going for a walk with the cows, there’s not much to do in that neighbourhood on a Sunday.

The Covered Stand.

The team wearing red had Pelenge Kicks on the back of their shirts, from which you could reasonably conclude that they had been named by Chris Waddle. I couldn’t see anything on the shirts of the team wearing yellow, so we’ll just call them Yellows.

A count up of the players confirmed that it was eleven a side, but it looked fairly congested. The keeper at my end was wearing number 300 on the back of his shirt, perhaps giving an indication of the size of the squad and his usual place in the pecking order.

View from behind the goal.

One team scored whilst I was watching although I can’t remember which one. It was at the far end though if you want to try to work it out from the photos.

I’m not sure where that goalie is. Maybe they were playing fly-keeper.

There were a few kids having a kickabout behind the goal and I asked one of them if he knew the score.

“Yes“ he replied, and left it at that.

As I was leaving one of the other kids asked me if I had two Pula. That’s around fifteen pence. Tempted as I was to respond in kind with a “Yes“ of my own I gave him the handful of change that I had in my pocket, which was probably no more than a couple of quids worth. He instantly became Mister Popular amongst his mates.

I’d seen an advert in the paper for a farm workers job that paid five hundred and fifty Pula a month and so that loose change was about equivalent to a day‘s pay. Frightening really.

Nice hat, ref.

Anyway, interesting as it was, we still had a stadium to find and so we left them to it

I’d thought that the football season in Africa had finished, but then I stumbled across the fixtures for the first round of qualifying for the 2015 Africa Cup of Nations. South Africa didn’t feature, so I assume that they don‘t take part until later in the competition.

Jen and I didn’t have anything planned for the weekend and so I had a look  at neighbouring countries to see if there was a game that we could get to. Swaziland were playing away so that ruled them out. Lesotho had a home game, but the flights were a couple of hundred quid a pop and I thought that was a bit much for a game that didn’t involve the Boro.

Botswana were also playing at home, against Burundi, and as the flights were  a fair bit cheaper that’s what we went for. We booked a room for the Saturday night that was handy for the National Stadium in Gaborone and everything looked all set. Or at least it did until I discovered that the National Stadium had already been booked for the African Youth Games. Bloody kids.The national team’s qualifying match for the Africa Cup of Nations had been put back a day and shunted seventy kilometres out of town to the New Lobatse Sports Centre.

I wouldn’t care, but a similar thing happened last month to Botswana’s game with Swaziland after someone had booked the National Stadium for a car boot sale or something. You’d think that the country‘s football team would get first dibs.

National Stadium, Gaborone.

Still, at least there was something going on at the National Stadium. The African Youth Games appears to be quite a big deal, with fifty four countries represented by a couple of thousand participants. By the time we arrived on Saturday morning though, there were only a couple of athletics events to complete before the closing ceremony.

We couldn’t park near the stadium and were directed to a Park and Ride. The bus driver told us that it would be at least half an hour before the bus would set off and so as it was only a ten minute walk back to the stadium we left him to it.

The stadium looked fairly empty as we approached, with no one going in other than gangs of teenagers in matching tracksuits and accreditation around their necks. A security guard told us that the only way to get tickets was by finding a particular chain of supermarket and buying tickets there. As we weren’t too fussed about catching the under fifteens three thousand metre steeplechase we gave up and had a wander around the market that had been set up nearby instead.

The condom shop seemed popular.

I don’t think that many of the stall holders had made the killing from the games that they’d hoped for. Ticket sales to the public were poor and a couple of thousand teenagers on a trip away from home  are more likely to nick your stock than pay for it.

I couldn’t help but admire a suit that had a strip of animal hide running down the spine of the jacket with more skin decorating the front pockets. I knew that it wouldn’t fit and even if it did I’d struggle to find the right occasion to wear it to, but when the bloke selling it suggested that I try it on I didn’t need to be asked twice.

If only it had been made entirely of zebra hide, I’d never have taken it off again.

With a day to go until the Cup of Nations qualifier we had time to make sure that we had match tickets in advance and so we popped into Gaborone town centre. It seems a safe enough place, although we were targeted by one of those fellas selling paintings to fund a day care centre for one legged orphans. We’ll be able to open our own gallery one day.

I’d read that the match tickets were being sold at Orange shops and so once we’d found one it was easy enough to pick up a couple of fifty Pula seats for the shaded stand.

In case you’ve never seen a ticket before.

We’d booked into a backpacker’s hostel, mainly because it was right next door to the Mokolodi Game Reserve where we’d intended to track rhinos on foot. Unfortunately the rhino tracking was the last thing in my list of things to arrange and they were fully booked. As we were staying nearby we visited the reserve anyway and settled for a two hour game drive instead. We still didn’t see any rhinos.

There were a few giraffes though and as we were driven around I quietly dropped the raisins from my complimentary bag of nuts and raisins for the warthogs to eat.

That bush doesn’t provide much of a hiding place.

I noticed an advert in the paper the next day for some of the livestock on the reserve. It certainly beats your standard gift shop, although we’d have struggled to have got any of them on the plane back to Johannesburg.

They’ll even gift-wrap them for you.

The hostel was ok, mainly because we had the best room, one of those roundel things with a thatched roof. As well as having the only en-suite bathroom on the premises it came complete with peacocks and the fattest pig I’ve ever seen.

I can only hope she was heavily pregnant as dragging your stomach along the floor isn’t a good look. Despite that, we fed her more leftovers than I suspect is healthy.

Fattest pig ever.

Next morning we drove down to Lobatse. We’d planned to call in at some game reserve with vultures but couldn’t find it and so spent most of the morning driving around the town looking for the stadium before stretching out our lunch long enough to read every section in a couple of Sunday papers.

The upside of having not much to do was that we got to the New Lobatse Stadium early enough to get a prime parking space just outside of the turnstiles. The downside, however, was that we had almost two hours to wait until kick-off.

New Lobatse Stadium

We were in the only covered stand and were able to take our pick of the seats to the left of the central VIP section. It’s a nice enough ground in a modern sort of way, the best feature probably being the hills in the background.

Hills are always good.

As kick-off neared we were treated to a dance trio. They roped in someone who looked like a bigwig in the FA at some point and he added to the entertainment by playing air guitar on the stick that the bloke with the robes had been wearing.

You don’t get that at The Riverside.

By the time the game kicked off I’d estimate that there around five thousand fans in the stadium. As ever, they kept arriving throughout the first half and probably a bit beyond that. One of them had brought what looked like a full-sized stuffed zebra. Perhaps he’d picked it up from the Mokolodi Game Reserve.

The zebra arrives.

The standard certainly didn’t seem like an international match with plenty of tackles flying in early on that missed both ball and man. The game was finally balanced at nil-nil after the first leg and it stayed that way throughout the first half, with just the single shot troubling the away keeper.

A Botswana corner.

We had to leave at half time as the change of date meant that we’d have struggled to have caught our flight otherwise. Our quick getaway meant that we missed the Botswana goal that clinched their passage into the second round and a tie with Guinea-Bissau. Who? No, me neither.

If the National Stadium isn’t already booked for some kid’s birthday party we might very well head back and see how they get on in that one.