Trail of the Lion King

The last 32 round of the Nedbank Cup took place at the weekend. It’s the nearest thing in South African football to the Third Round of the FA Cup in England, I suppose, in as much as it’s the stage of the competition when the big boys from the PSL join the sixteen lower division sides that remain in the competition.

I’m not entirely sure what format the competition takes in the earlier rounds but the sixteen non-PSL sides were made up of eight from the First Division, six from the Second Division and two representatives of the fourth tier South African Breweries League.

I’d rather have watched a game with a fourth tier side in it but there wasn’t one anywhere near us and so it was Gauteng Second Division side AmaBEE’s home tie against top tier Bidvest Wits that we went along to.

Jen and I were staying at a lodge which was about an hours drive from the Sinaba Stadium at Daveyton where the game was taking place. We’d been for a hike that morning and spotted the best selection of wildlife that we’ve seen so far over here.

I’ve no idea what type of monkeys they were.

As well as the fairly common zebra and wildebeest and the somewhat less common warthog and blesbok, we got decent views of  monkeys doing monkey stuff and then got to within about twenty yards of some giraffe.

Incidentally we’d seen some lamps made of giraffe legs in a shop recently. I don’t think they would have fitted in a suitcase though and so we had to pass on them.

Eight lamps worth of giraffes.

After lunch we headed off to Daveyton. It’s not the roughest place we’ve driven through, but I still wouldn’t fancy being there after dark. AmaBEE, which is pronounced Ama Bee Eee Eee, in the style of Juninhee Ohh Ohh Ohh, normally play their games in the equally ropey Tembisa area. Unfortunately the stadium that they had planned to use was in demand for an ANC rally and there was only going to be one winner in that clash of bookings.

We arrived at the Sinaba Stadium an hour or so early and after parking as close to the turnstiles as we could without actually blocking them, we had a look at a match taking place on a pitch nearby. The standard wasn‘t very high, with no nets, linesman and the odd player in shorts or socks that didn’t match the rest of his team, but there were quite a few people taking a keen interest in the proceedings.

Similar pitch to the Baseball Ground.

The pitch that they were trying to play on might very well have been the worst I’ve ever seen outside of a kick-around in a car park full of pot-holes. I suspect that there had once been some grass in the vicinity, but it was long gone and the game was taking place on what now looked like a dried up lake. Not surprisingly we didn’t see any slide tackles.

They had a grandstand though.

Despite having plenty of time to spare we didn’t hang about for too long outside and soon made our way inside the Sinaba Stadium. I’d guess that it could accommodate around ten thousand fans in four separate concrete stands, once of which has a roof and a VIP section with actual seats. We only had the basic forty rand general admission tickets and so the best we could do was to find an area where the main stand roof provided a bit of shade for the cheap seats.

Entrance to the Sinaba Stadium.

By the time we got around to kick-off I’d estimate that there were close to two hundred people watching. Initially I thought most people were supporting the home side, but I eventually concluded that the majority were neutrals, happy to applaud a bit of skill or laugh at the errors made. The most animated that the crowd got was when one of the linesmen dropped his flag during a particularly vigorous bout of waving. I think that for a couple of the blokes near us that one incident will have justified the ticket price by itself.

The view from the main stand.

In the first half it was difficult to say which team was from the Premier League and which was from two divisions below. Bidvest had one player, Matthew Booth, who stood out from the rest of his team mates on account of being white, bald and around a foot taller than anyone else. He also looked around twice the age of the other players as he hung around at the back, a good five yards deeper than the opposing strikers, perhaps as a concession to his advancing years.

Eventually I twigged who it was that he reminded me of, it was the PE teacher that Brian Glover played in Kes. Although I think that Mr. Booth was probably imagining himself as Jack Charlton rather than Bobby.

Matthew Booth – Bidvest Wits.

Neither side managed a goal in the first half, the nearest that we got was a decent effort from AmaBEE striker Cele who steered his header onto the post just before the break. I nipped across to the other side of the stadium for sausage and chips and had to contend with a concerned woman in the tea hut who was so worried by my turning down of the accompanying salad that she invited me into the kiosk to check that I wasn’t soft in the head.

Rare view from inside the tea hut.

Bidvest Wits took the lead ten minutes into the second half when Getaneh managed a quite Bergkampesque turn inside the six yard box to throw off two defenders before poking the ball home. By this time the crowd had swelled to around four hundred and most seemed pleased by the goal regardless of which team had scored it.

Main stand from behind the goal.

AmaBEE weren’t ever out of it though, or at least they weren’t until the last minute of normal time when Langwe’s shot from the edge of the box sneaked in at the far post and clinched Bidvest Wit’s place in the last sixteen of the competition.

The final of the 2014 African Nations Championship took place in Cape Town on Saturday, following the third place play-off match in a double-header at the World Cup stadium. Whilst it’s a tournament that hasn’t really captured the interest of most football fans over here, it was a good enough reason for Jen and I to fly south for the weekend.

The day before the game we paid a visit to Robben Island, where we were given a tour by one of the former political prisoners.

I bet they didn’t leave that door open in the old days.

He was an interesting bloke and he talked warmly of his time on the island, perhaps understandably focusing on the camaraderie, the political discussions and the women’s tennis on the telly rather than the days spent breaking rocks and the nights in a cell shared with sixty other blokes.

I was extremely tempted to ask him if he had learned his lesson and behaved himself since he got released but managed to resist the urge. Sometimes it’s better not to blurt out everything that comes into your head.

Nelson Mandela’s cell.

The journey to and from the island took about forty five minutes each way. In addition to the seals and what looked like sea-snakes but might very well have been bits of rope or seaweed, we got a good view of the World Cup stadium with Table Mountain in the background.

I should have used the camera with the zoom lens.

The place that we were staying at was within walking distance of the stadium and so the next day we had a stroll along the seafront prior to the 5pm kick –off of the third place play-off between Zimbabwe and Nigeria. It was all very picturesque and I got the impression that the area down by the beach was one of the safest areas that we’ve been to so far in South Africa.

Hardly any murdering going on.

There were only a handful of fans around as we arrived at the turnstiles. In fact we were heavily outnumbered by stewards and security staff. We had no bags to search and so the only delay was being stopped to be given a whistle each by one of the tournament sponsors. Quite odd really as whistles are one of the few things that I’d quite happily have security confiscating on the way in.

It made a rare and pleasant change for me not to be driving after the game and so I headed straight for the beer stand and for a can of Castle at just over a quid. That’s how it should be. Take note UEFA, with your overpriced non-alcoholic Carlsberg at the European Championships.

There’s that mountain again.

We had seats in the main stand, just to the right of the media section. Our allocated seats were in row three, but as we didn’t fancy staring at the back of a dugout we sat a few rows higher up. It didn’t matter as I don’t think the attendance for that first game ever got above five thousand or so.

The standard of play was poor, although I suppose with the players being drawn exclusively from the Zimbabwean and Nigerian domestic leagues I shouldn’t have expected much more. I’ve no idea how many of the players feature in the regular national team, but it couldn’t have been many.

Zimbabwe started their time wasting early on, perhaps on the basis that taking the tie to penalties might have been their best option. Their antics got even worse though once they had one of their strikers sent off for an assassination attempt on the opposing keeper.

The view to the left.

The ref did his best to try to keep the game flowing but with Zimbabweans taking turns to writhe on the turf, he had his work cut out. He managed to reduce the delays by refusing to allow the physios on to the pitch, insisting instead that each player be stretchered off without any prior examination.

Effective as that move was with the outfield players, it didn’t work with the Zimbabwe goalie who took full advantage of his special status. Eventually, after four treatment sessions and a lengthy pause for lace re-tieing, a yellow card cured him.

The time wasting backfired on Zimbabwe as with just five minutes left one of the Nigerian fellas steered a header into the far corner to put his team ahead. The goal sparked a remarkable increase in urgency from Zimbabwe, but it was too late for them to do anything about it and third place in the tournament slipped away.

A goal up, it was Nigeria’s turn to waste some time.

We slipped away too, the lure of an evening out by the waterfront being a more tempting prospect than hanging on for the final. For those interested, Libya won the competition on penalties, after they and Ghana had played out one hundred and twenty minutes without a goal.

South Africa is hosting the 2014 African Nations Championships with all of the matches taking place in just three cities, Cape Town, Mangaung and Polokwane. We live about three hours drive from Polokwane and so that was the easiest option for us to see one of the group games.

We booked into a bed and breakfast place on a farm just outside of town. There was plenty of land to walk around although they didn’t seem to have much in the way of ‘big’ wildlife. Over the course of a couple of hours all we spotted was the arse of an antelope disappearing behind some bushes and a few stray porcupine needles.

The lack of large animals wasn’t a big deal though as I’m still at the stage where I find the small stuff fascinating. At one point we paused for a few minutes to watch a dung beetle being attacked by ants.

It’ll end in tears.

The beetle was stuck on its back and appeared to have had most of its underbelly eaten away. I know you aren’t supposed to interfere in these matters, circle of life and all of that, but I gave it a nudge to put it the right way up. Pointless really as although it could still crawl around it was bound to die before long.

A little later we spotted the largest grasshopper we’ve seen so far. I know it doesn’t rival the Big Five, but it was impressive nevertheless.

I wouldn’t fancy the ants chances with this fella.

Ok, football. The African Nations Championship is a different competition to the better known African Cup of Nations. The main difference is that only players who play in their countries home leagues can participate in the African Nations Championship.

The lack of overseas stars has meant that the tournament hasn’t really captured the imagination of the South African public. Maybe after the 2010 World Cup and the 2013 African Cup of Nations, it’s a bit of an anti-climax.

The tickets for the games have been on sale for a couple of months now and seem realistically priced. We paid the early bird price of fifty five rand for ours which compares very favourably with the prices charged by, say, Kaizer Chiefs for their PSL games.  In addition, we could watch a second game for free if we wanted. The other Group D game between Burundi and Mauritania was taking place in the same stadium at 8pm and admission covered both matches.

We arrived at the Peter Mokaba Stadium about half an hour before kick-off. We didn’t have parking tickets and so despite the main car parks being virtually empty we had to park on the nearby grass. As we passed through the turnstiles we had the tops of our Coke and water bottles confiscated. This happens at Boro games at The Riverside too although I’ve learned my lesson there and just take replacement caps with me. Maybe I’ll have to get into that habit over here too.

Peter Mokaba Stadium

Whilst the tickets were for allocated seats, nobody appeared to be taking any notice. We headed for the covered stand on the tunnel side just in case it started to rain. There were a group of Congo fans directly below us waving their flags and blowing vuvuzelas.

I don’t know too much about Congo as a country, except that there’s two of them and both countries had qualified for this tournament. Today’s team was the Democratic Republic of Congo, but I don’t know whether they are ‘Good Congo‘ or ‘Bad Congo‘. Perhaps neither of them are ‘Good Congo‘. Maybe ‘Bad Congo‘ and ‘Even Worse Congo‘ are more appropriate labels. I don’t know. For those of you who know your history, the Democratic Republic of Congo is the place formerly known as Zaire.

The DR Congo fans.

The Gabon fans were congregated over to our right. There were probably a few more of them, but maybe they hadn’t had so far to travel. Or perhaps they’ve had fewer civil wars to distract them from second-tier football tournaments. The rivalry between the supporters was friendly enough, although it always seems that way over here. Perhaps having the tops removed from their Coke bottles convinces everyone not to kick each others heads in.

The Gabon fans.

So, on to the game. Gabon were wearing Brazil strips which, as kits go, are generally regarded as being as cool as it gets. When they are worn by Brazil that is. When teams like Gabon or Crystal Palace wear them, then it just makes me smirk. Particularly when it’s Palace.

Congo out-cooled their opponents in the fashion stakes with a shirt based upon their sky blue with diagonal red stripe flag. Red shorts and blue socks completed their stylish look.

DR Congo – extra marks for the classic goalie kit.

Gabon opened the scoring in the second minute. Congo’s pony-tailed keeper had needlessly given away a corner with a theatrical tip around the post and when the ball was floated over Nguema headed his team into the lead.

Congo’s best chance in the half was squandered when some bloke ballooned a free-kick so far over the bar that I think even his Mam and Dad would have found it hard not to laugh.

I was a bit disappointed with the overall standard of play. There was too much first time hoofing and not enough occasions when someone would put his foot on the ball and have a think about what to do with it.

Congo on the attack.

At half time we had a wander through the concourse on the way to a change of seat. In the toilets someone had just restocked the supply of free condoms and I spotted a fella helping himself to a couple of dozen. I doubted that he’d be staying for the second game as I assumed that he had other plans.

The catering stall didn’t seem very popular, perhaps not surprisingly with the main dish being described as meat and pap. I don’t know about you but I prefer a description to be a little more specific than just ‘meat’.

Meat and pap.

Gabon opened up the second half with a couple of decent chances. The first of which gave the Congo goalie a chance to redeem himself when he got down well to thwart a shot from a quick break. This was soon followed by someone wasting a free header after being left unmarked at a corner.

View from the far corner.

As time went on I noticed a few new fans arriving in different colours, presumably supporters of Burundi or Mauritania. I’m not even sure that Mauritania is a real country. I’d always thought it was one of those places in fairy tales that always had a Crown Prince or where you went through passport control via the back of your wardrobe.

A bit more of the action.

The final throes of the game saw plenty of pressure from Congo as they tried to force an equaliser, countered by even more time-wasting by Gabon as they tried to run the clock down. They brought a chubby bald bloke on for the last few minutes who, as a consequence of his Brazil strip, bore  a certain resemblance to Fat Ronnie. Or at least he did until he got anywhere near the ball.

The vuvuzela didn’t seem to be appreciated by everyone.

The early goal turned out to be the only one of the game and the victory took Gabon to the top of the four-team table. A few days later both teams won their final group matches to progress to the quarter finals.

Football in the PSL and the National First Division takes a two to three week break over Christmas and New Year and as it is very difficult to find anything out about football games outside of the top two divisions I didn’t hold out much hope of getting to a match during that time. I kept on buying newspapers for the sports coverage though on the off-chance that there might be a brief mention of something going on somewhere and for once I got lucky.

One of the tabloids that tends to specialise in lurid accounts of vigilante action against just about everyone from suspected murderers to those who are late in returning their library books had a write-up in the sports section on the impending finals of three local tournaments. The nearest one to us was in Tembisa and so we headed over to the Makhulong Stadium for Finals Day of the Philly Games.

‘A Local Shop for Local People’

Tembisa is an area best described as dodgy. It’s sufficiently dodgy that I soon received a phone call from the company Security Manager who had been alerted by our tracking device to the possibility of us having been carjacked. I reassured him by mentioning that we were parked next to a Police car although I’m not convinced that my standard retort of “It’s ok, we are at a football match” gave him any additional comfort whatsoever.

Not quite a Zenith Data Systems Final queue at the Ticket Office.

There was a small tent next to the stadium selling tickets for the day’s events. General admission was thirty rand, but there were some VIP tickets available for one hundred rand a pop. I had no idea what the additional benefits would be but as it’s not often that we can be VIPs for less than six quid each we treated ourselves.

Even a hundred rand seemed cheap when I looked at the schedule for the day. To kick things off early in the afternoon we had the under fifteen and then the under seventeen finals. These games were followed by the adult mens third and fourth place play-off featuring Amasokolaar against a team called G-String. Yes, really.

The competitive matches were broken up with what I imagined would be a none too serious kickabout between a couple of ‘All-Star‘ teams of ageing former pros before the day concluded with the main event, the men’s final, in which Cheese FC were due to take on Amandla.

We didn’t plan on watching all of the games, not least because it would be dark by the time they had finished and there’s no way I’d want to be in Tembisa in the evening. Anyway, five matches back-to-back is too many even for me.

The VIP Section was somewhere in there.

I had a word with the fella on the gate as we went in and he reckoned that this annual tournament was the only time that the stadium was used these days. I was slightly surprised to hear this as I’d been under the impression that one of the First Division teams, Jomo Cosmos, played some of their fixtures there.

I’d also read that the Makhulong Stadium had been the location for one of the warm up fixtures prior to the 2010 World Cup. North Korea had taken on Nigeria in a game that was notable for a stampede by fans who had panicked at the prospect of the free-admission game filling up and closing its doors.

It was all a lot more leisurely on this occasion though with only a couple of hundred people dotted around the ground so early in proceedings.

The view from the far side.

We didn‘t bother initially with the bit where the VIPs go, but had a walk around to the opposite stand instead. There were a few stalls selling food and drink, some of which were well-stocked with bottles of spirits. I was driving so turned down the frequent offers of a whisky or rum, but it gave me an inkling  that it might all get lively as the day went on.

Where the posh people sit.

After a while we made our way across to the VIP section to watch the remainder of the Under-15 final. Our hundred rand tickets gave us the benefit of an indoor bar and separate outdoor seating. We could have taken chairs outside but we chose to just sit on the upper step of the terracing instead.

New Generation, in white, seemed to have much bigger players and scored a couple of early goals before Flamengo, in green, reduced the deficit just before half-time.

The outstanding footballer on the pitch was Flamengo‘s number ten who, despite being half the size of some of his opponents, had by far the best touch. Unfortunately his efforts were undermined by his centre halves who tended to toe-bop the ball as hard as they could in the general direction of ‘far away’.

A third goal from New Generation towards the end clinched victory and sparked dancing to suggest that their name had been chosen with one eye on boy-band careers.

And an action shot to finish.

We stayed long enough to watch the first half of the Under 17 final before making a move. The crowd had started to grow a bit and it seemed sensible to quit whilst we ahead. We chatted to a copper on the way out who was surprised, yet pleased, to see us there. It seems that very few people from out of town have much interest in the Philly Games.

We were equally surprised and pleased to see that our car was exactly where we’d left it.

I tend to get up early these days whether I’m at work or not and one of the benefits is seeing what’s happening on the terrace outside of our house. It‘s usually multi-coloured birds scrapping over seed but on this occasion it was the dassie making his rounds.

A dassie is a rock rabbit. As you might expect that’s a rabbit that lives in the rocks. Its closest relative in the animal world isn‘t the bog-standard rabbit though. No, apparently its closest animal relative is the elephant. Bizarre, but true. Or it‘s probably true, I didn’t check myself. And no more bizarre than elephants themselves I suppose. Dassies don’t have tusks but they do have vampire-like teeth, which is pretty much all I know about them apart from their favourite food is the roses on the terrace.

“Oi, leave that alone.”

Oh, and when they’ve eaten their fill, they like to sleep it off on the rocks above the back garden. Still, I dare say an elephant would have made more of a mess.

He’s looking rather pleased with life.

With the dassie excitement over for the day, we set off for the match. Orlando Pirates were taking on Golden Arrows at the Orlando Stadium in Johannesburg.

It’s a football ground with a bit of a history as it was the intended destination for the marchers in what ended up as the Soweto Uprising in 1976. It was also the venue for Walter Sisulu’s funeral in 1993 and somewhat more recently, but less impressively, a Black Eyed Peas concert in 2010.

It should have been an easy enough place to find but I’d mistakenly put the address in the sat nav of the nearby Dobsonville Stadium instead, home of the Maroko Swallows. Now that is a poor area. We’ll not be going to any games after dark at that ground.

With the correct address identified we were soon at the Orlando Stadium, although not before we had spotted a woman crossing the road with an oil drum on her head. She didn’t quite have the classic ‘no-handed’ technique mastered, although I suppose with something that size it wasn’t a bad effort nevertheless.

It’s like Ladies Day at Ascot.

The Pirates were in the lower half of the table due to them being a few games behind the rest of the clubs as a consequence of their cup commitments, whilst Golden Arrows were at the foot of the league as a consequence of them being fairly crap.

With the difference in class between the teams it didn’t take the hosts long to open the scoring and Happy Jele poked a loose ball home after the Arrows keeper failed to hang on to the initial shot.

One-Nil.

Somewhat surprisingly the visitors were level within a minute or so with one of their defenders heading an equaliser after a corner. The goal highlighted the presence of two away fans who had been fairly quiet up to that point. Mind you, there’s not much to shout about as an Arrows fan these days.

We had a drinks break midway through the first half. That seems a sensible and frequent occurrence over here. Unfortunately Golden Arrows lost a little concentration and Orlando broke quickly when play resumed. A cross into the box was sidefooted home from close range by Matthews Manyisa, a midfielder who if I had to describe him in a word, then that word would be ‘shortarse’.

View from the corner.

We switched seats for the second half and tried the view from the upper tier on the other side of the ground. The play was fairly open with both keepers making some decent saves and coping well with the ropey goalmouths.

Corner to Golden Arrows.

The crowd was announced as three thousand, which I thought was a little optimistic. Despite the poor attendance there was a singing section in each of the four sides of the ground and millinery sections in at least a couple of them.

Fancy hats are popular amongst the supporters here, although none of them quite rivalled the oil drum lady from earlier in the day.

Better than a baseball cap or a beanie.

Orlando were probably the better side in the second half but didn’t put the game to bed until the last minute when little Matty Manyisa ended any uncertainty with his second goal of the afternoon. The win enabled Orlando to continue their climb up the table and kept Golden Arrows in pole position for the drop to the First Division.

We headed back off home to see how many of the roses we had left.

As there were only around ten minutes between the fifth tier game that we’d just watched and the fourth tier fixture that followed it on the same pitch, I thought I might as well hang around to see some of the second match.

It probably wouldn’t do any harm to pass on what I know about the structure of South African domestic football at this time. Top of the pile is the Premier Soccer League which gets around ninety-five percent of the overall media coverage. I suppose that’s how Premier Leagues are these days. The PSL is made up of sixteen clubs and the team that finishes bottom of the table gets relegated to the National First Division, whilst second bottom gets the chance of a reprieve via a play-off.

The National First Division also comprises sixteen teams of which one or two gain promotion to the PSL each year. Two teams are relegated to the third tier. The fixtures for the second tier are listed in a weekly sports paper but that’s about all the coverage it gets.

The third tier is the National Second Division, formerly known as the Vodacom League. It consists of nine regional leagues, each with sixteen teams. It gets minimal coverage and by that I mean that the only thing I can occasionally find is a weekly round-up of local results from a  newspaper in Limpopo. Dogs getting ran over get bigger headlines. So far I haven’t even been able to find a list of the teams competing at this level, never mind a fixture list or table.

There’s another set of regional leagues next that were formerly named after Castle beer. That level is known as the SAB League these days. Again, there is next to no information available. It’s a shame really as I expect there will be some interesting grounds at the lower levels.

From what I can see, the fifth tier is known as the Superleague, or at least it is in the group of eight that Arcadia Shepherds and Glenwegians play in. I’ve no idea if it is the same all over Pretoria, never mind Gauteng or the country as a whole. Hopefully I’ll stumble across more information as time goes by.

Time for a photo.

So, that’s how the leagues work. Or at least I think that’s how it is. I can tell you a bit about the Caledonian Stadium too. It was a greyhound stadium up until 1903. That’s the year that Arcadia Shepherds were formed. Hmm, coincidence?

Much as I like football I’m not keen on facilities such as greyhound tracks being taken away for alternative use. I used to love going to Cleveland Park to watch the dogs race and replacing it with a few five a side pitches and a school playing field has never struck me as a good move.

So, after the equally vague details of the league structure and the history of the stadium, on to the game itself. Arcadia Shepherds were in a white kit for this one, with Blue Stars in what I assume to be their traditional blue.

As kick-off approached we were treated to a pre-match prayer session from the Shepherds.

“Forgive us our trespasses into offside positions”

The fourth tier seems a bit more organised than the fifth and the game commenced with a full set of linesmen and corner flags. One of the assistants was the ref from the game that had just finished so in hindsight it’s probably no surprise that he had been pacing himself. The official on the other side was a woman who actually looked shorter than the corner flag. I doubted that those little legs would be getting up and down the pitch very quickly either.

Corner flags and officials, what more could you ask for?

Another indication that this match was more prestigious than the previous one was that the cage that protects the players as they emerge from the tunnel had been dragged into place. It didn’t really serve any other purpose than trying to suggest a greater sense of occasion than was warranted. Similar to the ball boys you can buy for Subbuteo, I suppose.

The view from the main stand.

There was a larger crowd this time, maybe sixty, although it did include a few of the players from the game that had just finished. With the afternoon drawing on there was plenty of beer and wine being drunk.

“Come on ye Shepherds”

As for the action, it was definitely a higher standard than the game before, although that’s not much of a compliment. Arcadia opened the scoring after five minutes when someone looped a header into the top corner.

Good as it all was, we had other stuff to do and back to back games were interfering with it. Twenty minutes were long enough to snap a few photos and so after that we left them to it.

After seeing some top-tier football in World Cup stadiums it was time to watch something closer to the game’s grass roots. We’d driven past Caledonian Stadium in Pretoria on a couple of occasions and a bit of research revealed that Arcadia Shepherds played their division five ‘Superleague‘ fixtures at that ground.

The same research also revealed that Bobby Charlton had made a guest appearance for the Shepherds in the mid-seventies. I wonder how he feels nowadays about making the trip in that isolated apartheid era.

I saw Bobby Charlton play at Sunderland, around 1977, in a testimonial game for Billy Hughes. The Dad of one of my mates supported Sunderland and so he took us up to watch. It was a decent gesture from Charlton to play, as I’m sure his appearance will have added to the gate receipts. We showed our appreciation in the way that twelve year olds do by shouting “Baldy“ at him, whenever he came over to our side of the pitch. He stared at us and you could see that he was wondering why he had bothered turning out.

Arcadia Shepherds without Bobby Charlton.

The game was a few minutes late in kicking off, probably due to the ref not seeming to arrive until twenty past one. At least he got there. The linesmen didn’t show up at all and the game was ten minutes old before anyone bothered to put the corner flags up.

For those interested, Arcadia were in a red, white and black kit whilst opponents Glenwegians wore white with green trim.

The view from the main stand.

Midway through the first half the Glenwegian captain tapped home a loose ball to put his team ahead. I’d long realised by that time that the standard wasn’t up to much. It seemed like classic lower level Sunday League, with a mixture of keen young lads and older, out of condition, fat knackers.

The goalmouths were worn, school-style and I noticed the away team’s manager was smoking a fag in the dug-out. As were a couple of the subs.

One of the Arcadia players got a red card ten minutes before half-time. He was unlucky really as there were outrageous tackles going unpunished all over the pitch. His offence resulted in a punch-up close to the half-way line and as the ref rarely moved out of the centre circle it meant that, for once, he was handily placed.

Right on the spot.

As the kid trudged off he grabbed his car keys from one of the subs in the dugout. I was hoping that we might get a repeat of one of the highlights of my Sunday League career in which a player who had been sent off returned in his Cortina and scattered opponents, team mates and officials by driving across the centre of the pitch on his way home. No such luck on this occasion though.

There were about fifteen fans in the main stand to start with and another five peering through the fence despite it being free to get in. A few more filed in as the game went on with the total crowd perhaps peaking at forty.

I can’t walk past a game without stopping to watch either.

The half-time break was the shortest I’d experienced since primary school, with the combination of the late kick-off and another game scheduled for that afternoon resulting in the players getting to sit down for precisely eight minutes.

Ten minutes into the re-start, a long punt downfield bounced over the away keepers outstretched arms and an Arcadia player beat him to the ball to prod it into the empty net. One each. It was around this time when the players for the next game started appearing. They warmed up along the side of the pitch, just about doubling the crowd in the process.

Parity didn’t last long as the Arcadia persistence with long ball tactics paid off. The next hoof was chased by a fella who was at least three yards offside. The lack of linesmen, compounded by the lack of mobility of the ref, meant that he got away with it and he finished well, much to the fury of the visiting players.

The main stand.

The fun wasn’t over though. At least not for those of us watching. The Glenwegian captain had spent all afternoon complaining to anyone in earshot about life’s unfairness. He finally got something genuine to cry about when he took a blast to the nuts from close range. It looked as if all his team’s subs had already been used as well. Or perhaps one of them had just lit a fag up and was reluctant to leave the comfort of the dugout. Whatever the reasoning, Captain Marvel staggered around for a couple of minutes before deciding that his lack of mobility meant that he would have to go in goal.

He swapped shirts with the keeper and the game resumed. Or at least it did until the ref noticed the switch and ordered the former keeper off to swap his black goalie shorts for a white pair that matched those of his outfield teammates. I got the impression that Glenwegians didn’t have much spare kit as it took a while to find a pair. Apparently it would have taken even longer to find a pair that fitted and so the former goalie rejoined the game in shorts at least a couple of sizes too small. It wasn’t a problem for long though as the ref promptly waved him back off the pitch. This time to change his black socks for white ones.

A bit of the action.

Insisting on matching socks seemed a little excessive to me in a game that was taking place in front of forty fans and  without any linesmen. Although if I’d been on the end of the incessant Glenwegian yapping I might very well have done the same.

Overcoming his struggle to sit down in his too tight shorts, the fella eventually changed his socks and re-joined the game. He didn’t get long to make an impact though as the ref, who was obviously conscious of the late kick-off and the players for the next game loitering on the sidelines, blew for time a couple of minutes early, denying the visiting team the chance of a last gasp leveller.

Despite the standard of football being the lowest I’ve encountered since my own playing days, it was a very entertaining afternoon.

For this weeks game Jen and I headed off to Mpumalanga and the match at Nelspruit between the Black Aces and Ajax Cape Town. It’s a three hour drive or so from Bronkhorstpruit and it took us up into a picturesque part of the country.

We’d hoped to see a few waterfalls and other sights, but with the fog and the mist the best we managed over the weekend was a couple of hours at Pilgrim’s Rest, a small town popular as a coach trip destination for old age pensioners who like to buy mass-produced Chinese tat.

We were just about the only people with our own teeth.

Nelspruit got itself a new stadium for the World Cup. The Mbombela Stadium, as it’s known, is the one with the Zebra pattern on the seats. I had a look at the list of the four games that were played there but didn‘t remember any of them. Oh well. Maybe that’s more a reflection on my memory than the quality of the games. Perhaps it wont be long before I’ll be on the bus trips to buy ‘hand carved‘ tribal masks.

Mbombela Stadium.

Mbombela is a good ground though, with a forty thousand capacity and no running track. We’d bought our tickets in advance online for forty rand. Not that we needed to as the crowd peaked at about a thousand. I wonder how much of a legacy the World Cup has left? It’s fine having these new stadiums but if people aren’t going to turn up then what’s the point?

I’ve read that the stadium has been used for rugby as well, but at the one game of egg chasing that we‘ve been to over here there were only around a thousand people at that too. It’s hard to argue with the notion that the original Nelspruit stadium was all that the town had ever needed.

Note the zebra patterned seats.

And so what else caught my eye? Well, Ajax had a Finnish keeper, Anssi Jaakola, if that’s of any interest. He recently had a spell at Kilmarnock and before that had turned out at Siena with Boro legend Massimo Maccarone.

Jaakola didn’t have much to do in the first half, with probably his only chance to shine coming when he punched a shot away just before the interval. Meanwhile his team mates rarely threatened the opposition and stealing the Ajax name was as close as they got to Total Football.

The Finnish fella takes a cross.

The second half saw a bit more pressure from the Black Aces with their striker Elliot Khenyeza going close on a couple of occasions. He just didn’t quite have the pace to lose the last defender, although as his shorts came down to below his knees I think it may very well have been poor aerodynamics that was costing him that extra yard.

The home fans.

The home side had a few penalty shouts as the game went on. I didn’t think any of them actually were penalties but I was expecting the ref to eventually award one as a result of the cumulative appeals. He didn’t though, resisting the pressure or chickening out, depending on your allegiance.

All that was left was for the Finnish fella to make a couple of fine saves at the death and that was it. A goalless draw, but an enjoyable game nevertheless.