Cape Town Stadium: Truly Magnificent

As promised, I can say I was there at the first ever football match played at Cape Town’s 2010 World Cup stadium. And what an experience. As ever, a big football match in the Mother City brought out the true spirit of the Rainbow Nation – every colour, every age – all just there to share in the historic moment and to have a great time.

The standard of the actual football wasn’t much to write home about, unless you are a fan of words like “rubbish” and “dull” and the phrase “couldn’t score in a brothel”, but the weather was perfect, the atmosphere superb, the organisation faultless and the stadium itself: truly magnificent. It was fascinating to watch as people came in and just stared in awe, open-mouthed.

I took almost a Gig of photographs, which I have managed to whittle down to 81 pictures and a video (HD, nogal!) of the very first kick off at the Stadium – courtesy of Ajax’s centre-forward, Diyo Sibisi.

Slideshow (in a separate window) | Flickr set

All in all, a brilliant day out and very promising for the World Cup. In a couple of weeks, we double the numbers for the Rugby – it’s going to be another sell-out and another great occasion.

EDIT: I’m told that there are some (continuing) complaints on certain (Cape Talk) radio stations about fans blowing vuvuzelas. The only noise I’m fed up with is the incessant whining of the whities who have suddenly become football fans (which is great) and now want to change the game to suit themselves (which is not). Bugger off.