Category: sport

The Soccer Festival @ Cape Town Stadium

Posted on

I hate it when people call football “soccer”, but even I won’t let that put me off the first official sporting event at the stunning Cape Town Stadium:

The Soccer Festival on Saturday January 23 2010.

The attendance is limited to 20,000 for this match between two local sides Santos and Ajax Cape Town as part of the build-up to test the stadium readiness for the rather larger tasks which follow later this year.
A larger crowd will be allowed for the next warm up event:

The second Cape Town Stadium test event, planned for February 6, 2010, will launch the Cape Town Stadium Rugby Festival.  A Boland Invitational 15 side will play the Vodacom Stormers. The SA 10s Legends vs International 10s Legends promises to be an exciting curtain-raiser to the main match.

Who knows, maybe the Stormers will like it there so much that WPRU will abandon Newlands.
OK – I think we all know.

Tickets for the January 23rd event are available via Computicket while stocks last (obviously).
Event flyer.

EDIT: Just spoken to Jessica from Cape Town Tourism.
She’s just come out of a meeting with SAIL StadeFrance and they have said that CAMERAS WILL BE ALLOWED in the stadium on the 23rd.

She was at pains to say that the ban still remains on other items (firearms, ammunition, fireworks, pointy things, the old South  African flag etc.).
Which is nice.

Conflicting reports

Posted on

While the cricket is on at Newlands, News24 have been trying to keep up with the (apparent) final throes* of South African (previously) fast bowler and all-round sporting ambassador, Makhaya Ntini’s test career. With limited success.

One of the great things about internet news sites is that they are updated with every single new piece of information that comes along. Thus, you get lovely anomalies like this one in the Sports headlines:

As News24 report– it’s all over for Ntini because he’s signed a contract with Middlesex. And then Ntini denies that’s the case. And both are reported.
It used to be the case that the Daily Mail newspapers could hide those embarrassingly incorrect stories by simply just publishing the best information they had to hand at deadline. But in today’s fast-paced world of internet news, it remains there; rudely demonstrating how inaccurate the journalists were.

As for the cricket, it’s been a hugely exciting day at Newlands. But I’m not there – saving leave for real sport in June and that little trip in December.

* No dodgy bowling action pun intended.

Helen Zille in a Mamelodi Sundowns Shirt

Posted on

I need to sleep. Desperately.

Tiredness has caught up with me after I failed to return to my slumbers last night after a particularly vivid dream involving Helen Zille opening a soccer centre in Khayelitsha, resplendent in a Mamelodi Sundowns shirt. (Ms Zille, not the soccer centre).
A quick search of the local news sites revealed that this dream had absolutely nothing to do with any recent event and that explains my concern. Why the hell would I be dreaming about the leader of the opposition? And why the hell would she be wearing a yellow football shirt?
She doesn’t even like Mamelodi. They didn’t vote for her. Atteridgeville is also strongly ANC, despite Julius Malema.

And before you suggest that I must be thinking politically, I can’t even vote. Even if there was an election coming up.
Any alternative reasoning doesn’t even begin to bear thinking about. Sorry, Helen.

Anyway, from that moment on, I was afraid to return to sleep, just in case I was haunted by odd dreams about vocal politicians in footballing attire. Thus, I am knackered. And I need to get some sleep because we’re due for more weirdness tomorrow night, in the shape of the traditional (and therefore it doesn’t actually matter how weird it is, because it’s been weird for years and is therefore wholly acceptable to be weird) Uncle Paul’s Christmas Party.

I will, of course, report back on this strange phenomenon, but as far as I can work out thus far, it involves kids being invited to Uncle Paul’s farm and meeting Father Christmas, who visits each year. If you think that’s a little strange, then just be thankful you’re not at Uncle Willy’s in Rondebosch.
I. Kid. You. Not.
Oh, and attacking people by throwing straw at them, before assembling about 200 kids, with an average age of six, on a carpet of straw within  a huge circle of bales of straw and giving them each a lit candle. Yep.
I’ll pack an extinguisher in the picnic bag. I know the UK is known for it’s somewhat draconian Elf ‘n’ Safety Laws (geddit?), but I don’t think you have be Professor van der Einsteyn to work out the potential dangers of the situation.

In Finland, they slaughter a moose (probably). It’s got to be safer than this.

Right?

FIFA World Cup Draw Photos

Posted on

Photos from the Long Street party, Signal Hill, the City Bowl and the awesome, awesome Cape Town Stadium on the night that Cape Town welcomed the world to the 2010 FIFA World Cup Draw.

 

After we had watched the draw, we headed up onto Signal Hill to take a look at the Stadium where it will all be happening – and couldn’t resist a few shots of beautiful Cape Town shining beneath us.

Here’s the Flickr set for more leisurely perusal (or if you don’t have Flash installed.*ahem* iPhone).

Beckham lauds SA

Posted on

LA Galaxy, AC Milan and England midfielder David Beckham is here in Cape Town for the World Cup Draw tomorrow evening and took time out of his busy schedule with FIFA to give an interview to… FIFA. Unsurprisingly, (for all the reasons you are thinking of, be they contractual or otherwise) he seems happy to be here:

When I was last here with England, I had the honour of meeting Nelson Mandela. That was the highlight of my career; to meet such a great man and a strong man and such a passionate man about sport and life will always stay with me. Then I played in the game and broke my arm! South Africa is such a great country and a sporting nation that deserves this World Cup. I think it will be a very memorable and special one.

And on Cape Town’s preparations for 2010:

When you visit the country that a tournament is being held in before the event, you get a special feeling. As the time approaches, you notice that feeling intensify. As soon as I landed here in Cape Town, I noticed changes in the roads, as well as new hotels and it seemed as though the people’s excitement was tangible. There’s no better feeling than that.

And he’s right. I’m beginning to notice that projects are nearing their end. The N2 is almost quite wide again. The N1 is really wide. I was at the airport last night and was astounded at the progress that has been made. The Stadium handover is only a few days away. My study is built and has a great view from the window.
As for the vibe – I mentioned it here – you just know that there is something very special going on right now. And if this is what it’s like for some balls being taken out of goldfish bowls, then I can only begin to imagine what next June is going to be like. Aside from greyer and damper, obviously. But it will be party time in the rain, believe me.

There are those who were fine with the road closures for their private party, but who are bitching about other people having fun; complaining about the security and the hugely busy CBD, moaning about the helicopters flying over the City Bowl; but they just don’t get it. This is big. Bigger than a little awards ceremony, bigger than your beloved rugby, bigger even than the end of Apartheid, according to some people in the know. Sure, you’ve never seen anything like it and you don’t want to be part of it, but doing your best to justify that decision while those around you are being swayed by the feeling is really not pretty.