Sunday 13th (more)

Back in the shed, watching a re-run of Ghana / Serbia on the big screen. One of the Americans has just asked her friend ‘Where IS Serbia?’
Sandton this morning is like Europa Park, with a bit of Touchwood, it’s very strange. The central bit is Nelson Mandela Sq, where you are supposed to hang out, except that they’ve built a big Sony marquee in the middle, where they have events inside, so you can hear the sound but not see what’s going on. Everyone sits in the cafes looking at the outside of the tent. Today all the Danes have arrived, and of course they were laying into the Tuborg despite the early hour. I was meanwhile laying into the Lipton’s Earl Grey and the SA Sunday Times.
Anyway I found the ticket centre and as advertised you put your card in and it immediately prints off your tickets. Takes about 20 seconds. Brilliant.
Got to Pretoria about two days before kick off, allowing plenty of time for Coke and crisps (2 for 1 at the Shell garage)in the car park, sited in a nearby (-ish) sports ground. I was so nervous about not knowing where the car was after the game that I took a picture of it. The stadium is in a kind of leafy area surrounded by parkland, not in the middle of town as it looks on the maps It’s a 60s / 70s building. It has a bit of the air of an arena where they massacre people in intellectual movies. Full off tall terracing and gloomy passageways.
I was just below where the cameras are, but I was right by a bottleneck / gridlock bit, so I had a harassed steward pretty much sharing my seat and loads of people standing in front of me looking for Row WW. I was in a neutral area, seemingly SA competition winners, obviously they were all supporting Ghana. The SA’s all wear yellow tops and they look like Brazil.
Good game, (though it doesn’t look that good on the telly just now), with an excellent performance by Birmingham’s former hero Kingson in goal for Ghana, and an adequate performance from Birmingham’s future hero Zigic. I hung around after the game until the stadium emptied, in fact for so long that the car park was pretty much empty when I got back, sadly depriving me of another crisp opportunity; as I was due at Centurion Park for the Germany game.
Centurion Park – as you know – is the famous cricket ground stuck out on the motorway somewhere – as you can imagine what with it being dark I had to have a couple of runs at it before actually finding it. Anyway, rather a lovely scene inside, with a couple of thousand people, a jolly little band onstage and some stalls selling Mutton curry. Pausing only to berate a bloke selling coffee who asked me if Birmingham had avoided relegation, I settled down somewhere near Deep Long Off to watch an excellent performance by the Germans.
Back here laying into the free tea: I haven’t managed to work out which are the shops that sell booze: not the 7-11’s and not the newsagents. I’ll try at the pharmacists tomorrow.