Tag: south africa

Hooliganballs

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Great news as South Africa’s new Advanced Passenger Processing (APP) – which I complained about bitterly when I flew to the UK last year – nips the plans of 10 Argentinian hooligans in the bud.

And while that’s just brilliant, this quote from Home Affairs Director General Mkuseli Apleni has got me confused and amused all at once:

Asked about whether the department will be able to bar other possible hooligans entering the country, the Director General said: “What we are saying is that in terms of the risks to the country we’ve put in place systems which will eliminate that risk to zero percent but I can’t say that I’ve got a foolproof system.”

So don’t worry, South Africa – zero percent risk means that you’re completely safe.  Although of course, the system isn’t foolproof.

Right.

Anyway, Apleni’s staff will face another stern test this evening as I collect my parents from Cape Town International for their much-anticipated World Cup visit.
Here’s hoping they don’t get deported before baggage reclaim…

Avoid costly mobile phone bills while in South Africa

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I can’t actually believe that I’m writing this. This sort of thing is so basic, it shouldn’t need to be written. And that’s going to open the floodgates to all sorts of other basic advice posts like how to wipe your bum after going to the toilet and how you should use a spoon instead of a fork when eating soup. Stuff you really shouldn’t need to be told.
It’s a road I don’t want to go down, but Sky News have forced me to with this article on their website:

World Cup Warning: £80 To Post Photos Online
World Cup ticket holders may need to resist the temptation to make friends envious by posting pictures online using their mobile phones, a customer group has warned.
Consumer Focus calculated that the cost of uploading just 10 photos to Facebook from South Africa could result in an eye-watering £80 bill from a UK mobile operator.

The article goes on to say that visitors should look for an internet cafe to use while they are here, or stock up on text and data bundles before they head over. But there’s a much better way, isn’t there?

My #worldcuphost mode kicks in.
If you’re  coming over for the World Cup, your first stop after the airport and the pub should be a supermarket or post office. There, you can pick up a Vodacom or MTN SIM card, which will cost no more than R1. That’s a whole 9 pence. You’ll need to have your passport with you to register the SIM in your name.
Stock up with some airtime from the friendly cashier, put that new SIM card in your phone – don’t forget to take your UK one out first – and use it for the duration of your stay.
That’s it, there are no more instructions.

Texts back to Blighty will cost around R1.50 (14p) each and data is around R2/MB (that’s 18p).
Train smash averted.

What? You remain unconvinced and  need some further encouragement that this is the correct way to go? Then let me help you out with an ever so basic example.
I’ve done some rudimentary calculations and I reckon that with the current exchange rate at about £1/R11.25 and the average price of a bottle of beer in a pub of R15, that £80 quid you were about to waste on Facebook could get you 60 (sixty!) extra bottles of beer.

I think you should send a few of them my way, don’t you?

Positive thoughts from Gordon Gilbert

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I don’t have too much to add to this excellent interview with footballer Gordon Gilbert – “The Jock who became a Bok” – from The Scotsman:

Although he was brought up in Scotland, Gordon Gilbert was born in South Africa, where he now lives and works. For a few weeks every summer, he is back in Perthshire, telling people what it is like over there, and why it is special, but too many of them just don’t get it. Too many of them have no idea about the host nation of the 2010 World Cup finals. 

Firstly, putting the record straight for the “experts” on the country who have never even been here (one of my pet hates):

“People have the wrong impression of South Africa,” he says. “People who have never been there think that there are elephants roaming about the streets and monkeys climbing the trees in your garden. Once you’ve been there, you realise how far that is from the truth. You see how beautiful it is, how the crime and all the negative stuff is blown out of proportion. It’s certainly not a third-world country in my eyes.”

See? It’s not just me.
On vuvuzelas (also here) and the atmosphere at South African games:

“I don’t know if you’ve heard of these vuvuzelas, horns that are constantly being blown during the match. My stepdad, who has watched football all his days, came over to watch me in the Nedbank Cup final, and he said he’d never experienced anything like it.
The noise is unbelievable. They are up dancing, playing the drums, getting very emotional about the outcome. For the players, it is just brilliant.”

And then, the really serious stuff – how will this tournament help unite this historically and culturally divided nation?

Whether the finals will help football to bridge the racial divide is another matter. Gilbert is one of few white players in South African football. Another is Matthew Booth, who plays for the national team. There will be plenty talk these next few weeks of the Rainbow Nation, of the game’s potential to unite black and white, just as there was after the 1995 Rugby World Cup – when Mandela famously donned the Springbok jersey – but is it realistic? 

“It’s difficult for me to think that, just because we’ve got the World Cup finals, everybody is going to mix overnight. Yes, they are now living and working together in the same country, but the cultures are very different. If you go to a rugby game, the guys are very reserved. They’re not blowing horns like they do in football. Will there be more whites in football because of this? I don’t know. What I do know is that South African football will be the stronger for it. People are not going to look down on it anymore.

Of course, this interview, published on Sunday, was almost certainly done before the all South African Super14 final between the Bulls and the Stormers. Because that was packed full of vuvuzelas, start to finish. And gave us these amazing photos.
Maybe Gordon might want to revise his thoughts on that one…

Many thanks to Altus Momberg for the heads up.

That match at Newlands

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It was the biggie. The North/South derby match. The one that everyone had been talking about even more since they realised that this season, it might actually make some meaningful difference to the final standings of the Super 14 table.

We parked the kids with a handy Mother-in-Law, I dosed myself up with MedLemon and Corenza Para-C, chose to ignore the ongoing viral guests which have been (literally) plaguing me all week and headed down to the aging Newlands Stadium along with 49,000 others, in order to witness the fiercest rivalry in South African rugby.

And the Stormers of Cape Town were on a hiding to nothing. Ever since the Bulls (of Pretoria) announced that they would be resting “several” of their first team players for the match, the home side were in a metaphorical no win situation.
Lose and you’re the laughing stock of the country. Win and no-one is impressed, because you’re only playing the Bulls’ B team – albeit with several Springboks in the side.
At this point, for less-informed readers, I should perhaps explain that I don’t mean actual springbok springboks – as in the little antelope things – look, they’re bloody fast, but their lack of ball-carrying abilities renders them near useless in the more technical aspects of the modern game of rugby. Like, for instance, ball-carrying.
Seriously, if someone were to genetically engineer a robust and dependable ball-carrying arm onto an actual springbok springbok, I swear every rugby team in the world would be trying to sign it up.

But I digress.

What I mean is that several of the so-called Bulls’ B team have played rugby for South Africa at international level. So they weren’t actually that ‘B’ at all. Add to that the fact the many of the Bulls side didn’t have a match last week to recover from and – more cynically – that they didn’t have to be concerned about any suspensions for the upcoming semi-finals either, since presumably the A-team would be back for that game.
At this point, for less-informed readers, I should perhaps explain that I don’t mean the actual A-Team – as in Hannibal, Face, Murdoch and BA Baracus… oh… never mind.

But from the very first kick, it was clear that this was going to be one way traffic. The Stormers went ahead early through ex-Bulls winger Bryan Habana and never really looked back. Let’s not forget, that for all the Bulls’ excellent performances this season, it’s the Stormers who have the best defence record in the league (by some clear margin) and that defence never looked to be in serious danger tonight. Habana got his second try after 23 minutes before crowd favourite Andries Bekker added a third on 27 – effectively ending the game as a contest – at least as far as the scoreline was concerned.

Down 28-3 at half time, the Bulls did seem to come out for the second period with the sole intention of injuring as many Stormers players as possible. And by whatever means. There were a couple of shoulder charges, some nasty little exchanges after the ball had gone and one shocking incident involving a horrifying chainsaw attack on the Stormers’ scrum-half.
(I may have made that last one up.)

Job done, the second half was less entertaining than the first. Stormers’ centre Jacques Fourie dotted down to take the score to 38-3 and then the Stormers started resting their first team as well, a home semi-final (their first since 1999) against the NSW Waratahs already in the bag. With many key players taken off, the Bulls snatched a consolation try in the 78th minute.

It was a disappointing way to finish, but the job was done. And while – as I mentioned before – Pretoria fans will be anxious to remind everyone that this was hardly their starting XV, the history books will just list the final score: 38-10.

Bragging rights are therefore, for the moment at least, quietly settling down into a worn leather armchair with an expensive glass of brandy at a trendy yet understated cigar bar in central Cape Town.

Next week, South Africa hosts the two semi-finals: Bulls v Crusaders and Stormers v Waratahs. If results go with the home sides, it will be another Bulls v Stormers match-up in an all South African Super 14 final on 29th May – but this time, with the Bulls’ A-team – who will presumably have been locked in a garage with only a bakkie, a couple of tonnes of scrap metal and some welding equipment in the intervening period – in full attendance.

Watch this space.

Cross-posted at the SA Portfolio Collection Travel Blog

On fielding weakened teams

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The MASSIVE match this coming weekend is the MASSIVE clash between MASSIVE rivals, the Stormers of Cape Town and the Bulls of Pretoria in the Super 14 rugby tournament. And there’s a MASSIVE amount at stake, with the Stormers looking for a lucrative (and potentially winnable) home semi-final, which they will get if they win this game.

The Bulls have a had a great season and are already guaranteed to finish top: they will have home advantage for both the semi-final and the final (assuming they win that semi). And – safe in the knowledge that those conditions are already fulfilled – they are going to field a weakened team against the Stormers at Newlands on Saturday. And that has led to protests from teams in Australia and New Zealand, as Kevin McCallum explains:

At 4.52am on Tuesday morning, the whining began nine time zones away. An email arrived in inboxes from the Sydney Morning Herald with the headline: “Blow to Waratahs as Bulls set to rest stars in South African stitch-up.”
The stitch-up? Well, having already secured for themselves the number one spot in the league, the Bulls are considering giving Victor Matfield, Fourie du Preez, Gurthro Steenkamp et al a rest ahead of the semifinal. Not an entirely unreasonable move, you might say. Not across the water, however.

“It reeks of a South African stitch-up in the Super 14,” reads the report.
“With one round to go, the integrity of rugby’s premier provincial competition could be compromised with tournament leaders, the Bulls, set to field a second-string team against the Stormers in the top-of-the-table clash in Cape Town.
The Waratahs, currently third on the ladder with 38 points and one point behind the Stormers, will get to play a semifinal at the Sydney Football Stadium if they beat the Hurricanes on Friday night and the Stormers lose to the Bulls. Such a game could boost the Waratahs’ coffers by several hundred thousand dollars.
The odds of the Stormers hosting a semifinal in Cape Town will be shortened if the Bulls field a weakened team. Such a result would be unfair to teams such as the Waratahs and the Crusaders from Christchurch who are both seeking a home semifinal and have both lost to full-strength Bulls teams this season.”

The thing is – while their suggestion that the Bulls would ever do the Stormers any sort of favour in this regard is laughable – and much as I hate to agree with whining Aussies – they’re actually correct. It’s completely unfair and it shouldn’t be allowed.

But my feelings on this issue go far deeper than just this silly egg-chasing event on Saturday. As a Sheffield United fan, I’m fed up with the big sides playing weakened teams for matches against relegation-threatened smaller teams. Who can forget the team that Liverpool put out against Fulham in May 2007? Well, everyone actually, because no-one had ever heard of any of the players. Two of them were still in nappies.
Of course, Liverpool (Reserves) promptly lost that game, Fulham got the 3 points and stayed up at our expense.

Red scum Manchester United are famed for resting players ahead of “big” games: against West Ham in 2007, against Hull last season.
And this season, Fulham were found not guilty of fielding a weakened side, despite resting 5 of their key players for a game against the Tigers.

Look, my rationale on this is fairly simple, so even Bulls supporters should be able to follow it without too much difficulty:

If you’re playing in a knockout competition, like the FA Cup (or like a Super 14 semi-final), then as far as I’m concerned, you can field who the hell you like. Field your 6 year old granddaughter at scrum-half if you want. Because, when that decision backfires (and it usually will, because she’s rubbish) and she fumbles a greasy ball at the back of a 79th minute ruck on your 22 and the opposition runs in the winning try, the only team affected by your silly idea is yours. Hard luck, sunshine.
However, if you are in a league competition, where that 79th minute winning try might affect other teams aside from the one you’re playing against, then fielding a 6 year old should not be allowed. And yes, even though the Bulls have “earned” themselves the right to rest their big names, they really shouldn’t be allowed to.

This is based on fairness and on logic. I have carefully stayed away from the emotional “the fans pay good money and don’t get to see the big names” argument, though it should probably be considered by SANZAR when (if?) the weakened teams issue is discussed.

I’m not suggesting that they should alter the rules before this Saturday – that wouldn’t be fair on the Bulls. Ag, Shame.
But there should be a new ruling and some clarity over what constitutes good sportsmanship over this issue, which will surely arise again in future seasons. In the meantime, as far as I’m concerned, the Aussies and the Kiwis have every right to cry foul.