When South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup back in May 2004 there were 2217 days to go to kick off. Now there are 11.
Dylan and I have counted down every one of those days. Over the course of the last 2206 days South Africa has had 3 different Presidents and 7 or 8 different First Ladies.Over the same period we've seen 5 brand new stadiums rise from the dust. We’ve seen highways constructed and bridges built. We’ve fended off an endless stream of negativity, peddled by sections of the German and British media (not to mention a lot of South Africans).
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We are 11 days away from kick-off and that negativity has got nowhere left to go. The initial apathy shown by locals toward buying tickets has been replaced with a mad frenzy. A year ago there were no ticket queues. Now we’ve had to bring in riot police in to control the queues.
Fans queue for World Cup tickets
When South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup back in May 2004 there were 2217 days to go to kick off. Now there are 11. Over that time we’ve seen 7 different Champions League Finals and 7 different FA Cup Finals. All the other trophies and medals have been handed out. The next tournament is the big one, the one we’ve been waiting 6 years for.
On the very day South Africa was awarded the 2010 World Cup, in fact just 2 hours before the announcement was made, our Cape Town rugby team, the Stormers, were beaten by the Crusaders in the semi final of the Super 12. Dylan and I watched both events that Saturday morning at a pub called Rascals. I remember at the time being struck by the divide between rugby and soccer supporters in the pub. Put another way, you’d have been hard presssed that day to find a rugby supporter excited by the prospect of our staging the biggest sporting event on earth.
Fast forward 6 years to yesterday afternoon and the final of this year’s Super 14. The Stormers went one better this time and took on the all-conquering Blue Bulls in this southern hemisphere decider. The Bulls’ home ground in Pretoria is one of the 10 World Cup venues. To ensure a pristine pitch come June it was agreed to play no rugby there for a full month before. The Bulls had to find an alternative venue to stage both their semi final and the final. The Bulls, a team with the staunchest of Afrikaans heritages, chose Orlando Stadium in the heart of Soweto.
Orlando Stadium in Soweto
This stadium is a stone’s throw from the Hector Pieterson memorial, commemorating the Soweto uprising in June 1976. Many of the police who opened fire on Petersen and his fellow students were white Afrikaners. It is highly likely that many of them were supporters of the Blue Bulls (or Northern Transvaal as they were officially known back then).
A dying Hector Pieterson is carried by Mbuyiso Makhubo
Yesterday was a remarkable day and the images will live with us a long time. The vuvuzela has not, up to now, been a welcome guest at South African rugby grounds but the phenomenal noise created yesterday by 40 000 rugby fans would have done justice to the a Pirates-Chiefs Soweto derby.
The 2010 World Cup is here. It arrived yesterday afternoon at a rugby match in Soweto. This tournament will carry the whole nation and it will do so in a highly emotional way. If you think the singing of the national anthem at Orlando Stadium yesterday was spectacular then fasten your seatbelt for Soccer City on 11 June. 94 000 people will pack out another stadium in Soweto, vuvuzelas in hand. When they stand to sing the national anthem you will know for certain that this remarkable country’s time has come.
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