Last rites

It seems that Saturday’s rugby game may have been the final nail in the coffin for Newlands – traditional home of the Western Province Rugby Union. Previously, the Union had steadfastly refused to consider any move from the Newlands ground to the new stadium. However, popular South African rugby website keo.co.za thinks the friendly game at the new Cape Town Stadium may have forced their hand:

It was impossible for the 40 000 people who attended the pre-season game not to draw comparisons between the new stadium and WP’s home ground on the other side of Table Mountain. Quite simply, the one is modern, light and uplifting, while the other is old-fashioned, dark and depressing.

There is no reason for the rugby not to move from Newlands save for tradition. As has been remarked upon in the comments on this post, change is never easy to accept – especially where such a long and proud history exists – but there are very few occasions when clubs move to new grounds and stadiums and management and fans look back and are unhappy with their new home.

Newlands is inevitably going to suffer the same fate as those other rugby relics, and it’s time WP administrators accept this. They need to start preparing for the future, and the future of WP rugby – whether they like it or not – is in Green Point.

The Stadium would also benefit from the move and has already demonstrated that it can comfortably handle a big rugby occasion.
Having the Stormers and Western Province as an anchor tenant would be a huge bonus. The Stormers could fill the stadium for many of their Super14 fixtures and it would inevitably attract other large rugby events such as international matches.
Meanwhile, the Newlands Stadium site would be of huge commercial value as real estate.

All it takes is the courage to make the move.

Cape Town Rugby Festival – a few thoughts

How any rugby fan could possibly ever complain about vuvuzelas after yesterday’s inaugural rugby match at the Cape Town Stadium is beyond me. At least they make you realise that you’re at a major sporting event.
As for yesterday, I have experienced more atmosphere on the moon. Not personally, obviously, but my good friend Buzz Aldrin assures me that it was one long party while they were up there, although bodily functions were a little difficult to perform. 
What a sterile occasion. Sure, rugby fans can drink a lot, but they are seemingly almost completely silent during big games. 40,000 of them, mainly white, quiet as mice for large periods of the game. When the stadium announcer has to organise and then continually propagate a Mexican Wave, then you know that something’s not quite right.  

In fact, the biggest cheer of the day was for Emperor of the Western Cape, Helen Zille and ineffectual City Mayor, Dan Plato, who entered the field pre-game to a bizarre Medieval-style regal trumpet fanfare, then gave overtly political speeches about how great it was to have a stadium, frequently interrupted by sycophantic and raptuous applause.
Quite where those speeches were for the football a couple of weeks back is beyond me, although every cynical bone in my body (and I have a few) is screaming something about the “wrong audience”.

Bryan Habana also got a huge ovation when he came out in the first half for a bit of a warm up. Later in the match, he came on for 20 minutes and didn’t touch the ball once. Obviously, he would have scored loads of tries if he had touched it though, because he’s Bryan Habana.

For those of you that don’t follow me on twitter, my son was horribly ill on Friday night and Saturday morning and wasn’t allowed to go to the match (Doctor’s orders). Both he and I were hugely disappointed. (Our plans for Saturday morning will also have to be rearranged). So he didn’t pass his World Cup readiness test.
The Stadium, on the other hand, did (I think). Yes – there were traffic issues on the way into town – mainly thanks to the disco effect traffic lights at Buitengracht and Western Boulevard – and yes, our seats were removed to make way for a TV camera position. But we got there in plenty of time and we were swiftly apologised to by Sail-StadeFrance staff and escorted to the VIP section to watch the game. Nice.

I haven’t heard much public opinion on the organisation for this event, but I certainly didn’t see any major problems. The traffic on the way out was amazing – 29 minutes from leaving our seats to getting home to Kenilworth. It regularly takes longer than that to get home from the rugby at Newlands, which is less than a quarter of the distance.

The stadium is looking superb, and despite the breezy conditions outside, was very sheltered within – no problems for the kickers. The pitch looked great and the players certainly seemed to enjoy the day. Even the Boland team, who were beaten 47-13. All in all, it seemed like a great success and who knows if it will help WPRU to do the sensible thing and move from Newlands.

If they do, they’ll need to import some more excitable fans, though.

Cape Town Rugby Festival set on flickr.

One way

This was the song that graced most of my time at University in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. I still get shivers down my spine when I hear it. If I had ever managed to compile a Top 10 of my favourite songs ever, this would probably be one of only three songs that would be a shoo-in. I can’t quite recall what the other two are right now, because my head is filled with the sound of the quite brilliant One Way by The Levellers, seen here at Glastonbury in 1994.

I was lucky enough to see The Levellers in Brixton in 1995 as part of their Total Chaos tour and rarely have I seen a band have quite so much fun on stage. The evening was a great success and – despite the tour’s moniker – wonderfully organised, save for the young gentleman that climbed up one of the rope ladders at the side of the stage and refused to come down for the rest of the set.

It wasn’t me.

Doubling up

After the huge success of the opening football match at the Cape Town Stadium, the next test comes tomorrow when the crowd limit is doubled from the 20,000 that watched the football to 40,000 for the Stormers v Boland rugby clash.

And while they are testing the stadium for World Cup readiness, I am going to use the opportunity to test the Alex for World Cup readiness.
I’d imagine that sitting watching egg-chasing with 39,999 other people might be quite an ordeal if you’re only 3¾ years old. And while I’ll take plenty of sweets along for bribes, I do have a feeling that he won’t enjoy it much. However, better to give him a chance to see the stadium and at least know what it’s like ahead of the Midwinter’s Day clash between the diving Porras and the enigmatic North Koreans.

Because even if he hates it tomorrow, he will be going along to that World Cup game – it’s always better to regret something you have done, than something you haven’t. And then, when he grows up, he will be able to tell his kids that he was there.

Note: I will also be test-driving Mrs 6000 on the new stadium tomorrow. But she went to Newlands once, so I think she’ll be fine.

3000 photos from civilisation…

I have just noticed that I have a total of 3,000 items on my flickr. Cue the celebrations.

This image of Alex “doing magic” (his words when he saw the photo) yesterday evening was amongst the upload that got me to 3,000 items.

Statpr0n: Of the 3,000 items, 22 are videos and 2,978 are photos, of which about 4 are actually quite good.