Gap Year Experiences
Updates and info from on the ground during our 11 week and 5 week Experiences in South Africa
Another 4 years
Wednesday 30 June 2010
So that all-too familiar feeling of pain, anger and disappointment was with us again last Sunday – the end of England’s World Cup dreams, for another four years at least, dashed this time by our old foe that is the German Football Team. Not since Italia ‘90 have Germany been the ones to do the damage at a World Cup, they went on to win the tournament that year and who’s to say they won’t do it here in South Africa with their new-look-ish young team?
Four years ago it was Gelsenkirchen and Portugal, this time around, Bloemfontein and Germany. Last time Sven took us to the quarters, Fabio came unstuck at the second round stage. The inquest has already begun, the questions are being asked will continue for some time I’d imagine. Does the Premier League need a winter break? What was wrong with Wayne Rooney? Should Fabio have broken from his rigid 4-4-2 system? And is he the right man to take the team through to 2012? The performances were lacklustre to say the least, and the team just could not reproduce the form seen during the qualifying campaign. After scraping the group stage, we were convincingly outplayed by a better team who stuck effectively to their clear game plan and it is the Germans who will face Argentina in Cape Town this weekend.
Speaking of Cape Town, the tournament is very much still alive and kicking down here. The city continues to embrace its visitors, the locals are packing out the stadium for every game and picking a team and not holding back! I was lucky enough to watch last night’s game in what is a truly awesome stadium, surrounded by crazy Spaniards and mental Portuguese, I kept the faith and wore the England shirt. Spain are clearly a force to be reckoned with as they gave Ronaldo and co absolutely nothing last night, if Del Bosque would only start with Llorente and use Torres for the last twenty, they could go all the way!
Despite England being back home already, there are massive games coming up and it only gets better from here on in. So Chin Up-Son, enjoy the footie and let’s start building for 2014, see you in Brazil!
Doug
Qualification! Just. And Pepper extremes in Plett
Tuesday 29 June 2010
I am writing this in a French restaurant in the middle of the South African Karoo. I have a large hangover after England qualified for the second round of the 2010 World Cup yesterday! This happened thanks to our 1-0 victory over Slovenia – no great feat in itself but after seeing France take an early flight home when Bafana smashed them 2-1(!), it was greatly received.
12 hours soaking up the atmosphere in PE for England’s final group game made this a day to remember – Fabio’s Barmy Army (that’s us by the way) warmed up alongside a lot of other fans, at the beachside bar with a game of kick-ups, which, we found out later, featured on repeat on Sky Sports News! Poor old Slovenia were sent home after Landon Donovan’s late strike against the Algerians but we still enjoyed their chants, even though we had no idea what they were saying it sounded a lot like “I’ve just found an easter egg” – bizarre. Our own post-match songs were dominated by German references and the massive football rivalry and history between us and them, as it’s them who we are stuck with in the next round, after we scraped through the group in second place. We celebrated at Barney’s Tavern, a bar packed with most vociferous and similarly relieved and happy England fans, before a ride home with a wacky taxi driver capped off a fantastic few days.
The journey from Cape Town to PE also needs mentioning. Our half-way stop was the beachside town of Plettenberg Bay where we stayed two nights in a wicked apartment overlooking the sea and the mountains as the backdrop – not a bad sight to wake up to at all. Despite the short stay, Plett had many highlights, including seeing Fatboy Slim live in an underground warehouse ( ), but for me, what I will remember forever is two exhilarating experiences; one at the world’s highest bungy jump and one at Plett Skydive. I did the bungy first and then Mark brought a massive cheer from the crowd watching on the viewing platform by unfurling a St George’s Cross flag while suspended upside down in the gorge! The skydive though, beat even the bungy...it was just awesome, words cannot really describe the feeling – you just have to do it. The best I can do is to say it’s the closest feeling you can get to a late Emile Heskey goal against Germany, or seeing penguins (on a beach obviously).
Fingers crossed for Sunday...
Chris
Steve Pienaar Pienaar!
Monday 21 June 2010
After pimping out the Pepper Tour Bus, Fabio’s Barmy Army marched into Cape Town to see the sights, drink the local beer and watch England cruise to an easy victory against Algeria...
Within a few hours we had all achieved one of our objectives after entering into a drinking contest during Brazil vs. North Korea in which I apparently agreed to get the ‘North Korean Wayne Rooney’ tattooed on my hand if England win the World Cup – so I should be safe there then!
After waking up on time and raring to go (a theme of the trip), Doug took us up Lion’s Head to start seeing the sights of this beautiful city. Advertised by our tour guide as a leisurely stroll, one hour later we found ourselves scaling a mountain 2,000 feet in the air with only my minimal strength and some well placed chains keeping me from taking a premature skydive. All jokes aside, this was a great shout; the views of Cape Town and Table Mountain from the top of Lion’s Head were breathtaking and as per another tradition of Fabio’s Barmy Army, we briefly disrupted the tourists’ enjoyment of the tranquil setting by bellowing out an England song or two.
We had changed colours by the evening as we got behind Bafana Bafana down at the city’s Fan Park. It was a disappointing result in the end after diving Uruguayan Luis Suarez got ‘keeper Khune sent off and Bafana lost three nil. We still had a great night out with the local fans and we were all very pleased to briefly silence the vuvuzelas and get the locals joining in with our very own Steve Pienaar song every time he touched the ball! Lyrics are as follows:
Steve Pienaar Pienaar
He Drinks While He Drives His Car
He Plays For Bafana
Steve Pienaar Pienaar
The build-up for the England game began on Thursday with a GMTV appearance on top of Table Mountain where there was more singing (obviously) and Chris proudly invented, and then set the record for, the most ‘kick-ups’ on top of Table Mountain. After some stunning views (and queues) we left the mountain and had a game of football on the beach at Camps Bay as the sun went down over the ocean; this has to be the most picturesque place I have ever played football! We had a great night out at the Waterfront watching the French lose to the Mexicans, celebrating this into the night with Nick sharing his vocal talents with the whole bar, on top of a well-placed beer barrel.
Game day arrived and was enjoyed by all up until 8:30pm (kick-off time!) starting with Mark getting pictures of Fabio to create the ultimate Fabio’s Barmy Army tour t-shirt. Pippa became an honorary England fan for the day, leading our chants in the true style of an England football hooligan/supporter. A lot of beer and singing later, we made our way to the game... despite seeing the sights and soaking up the atmos, the easy win against Algeria was out of Pepper’s hands. An awful performance brought a nil nil scoreline that left us all gutted and makes the Slovenia game in Port Elizabeth absolutely huge!
Tears and depression were still evident the next morning, except for Chris as he was uncontrollably excited about seeing the penguin colony at Boulders Beach. The penguins did lift the mood of the group slightly and this soon escalated to giggling school child excitement as we first met Glen Johnson and then while taking in the views of Cape Point we met Sky Sports legend Chris Kamara. Getting him to say ‘Unbelievable Jeff!’ into the Pepper Cam is certainly a highlight for all of us and it has set us back on the path of naive optimism for our World Cup hopes. Bring on PE, bring on Slovenia, COME ON ENGLAND!
Ben
Word Cup Matchday!
Tuesday 15 June 2010
With the fan fest experience on Friday giving us a taste of the South African World Cup, we were up early and hungry for more. The short drive from Jo’burg to Rustenburg was initially filled with excited talk about the England squad and all the predictions for the game.
This was soon replaced with Chris’ ipod, where we were treated to a mixture of musical styles from the techno Euro 2000 album to the more traditional English football songs of “Three Lions” and “God Save the Queen”. Needless to say we arrived at our campsite in Rustenburg feeling rather patriotic, a feeling that was further instilled as we walked around the campsite filled with flying St Georges crosses. After setting up tents we went into Rustenburg to try and find a way kill the 8 or so hours before kick-off (of the England game). After driving around we stumbled onto the quite appropriately named “Lucky’s”, where within ten minutes of being there we made it onto Sky News. We then realized the extent of our luck when found out the place had been reserved for English fans. We spent the next few hours enjoying the 70p a pint beer and getting the whole Pepper group interviewed live on Sky News. Needless to say after the interview everyone was phoning friends and family to tell them of our new found stardom, with Pippa getting a few angry phone calls as she had appeared on international TV wearing an England shirt.
We left the pub having sung (and in Chris’ case, started) every possible England chant. The atmosphere there and on the way to the stadium was something I had never experienced before. It was unbelievable. The fact that everyone had lost their voices before we reached the stadium really said something about the build up. We then entered the stadium with Nick telling the English police that were there what he thought of their hats. Inside the stadium the feeling and anticipation was electric with English flags and voices dominating the US counterparts. I enjoyed the match until the 38th minute. We won’t talk about the rest.
England -1 (Gerrard, 4’) – USA -1 (Greene being useless, 38’)
-Mark
The FIFA fan park in Joburg!
Outside the stadium in Rustenburg
Our live interview on Sky News
It's here..our world cup trip kicks off!
Thursday 10 June 2010
So we have arrived in the absolutely electric Johannesburg in time for Africa’s first ever World Cup. The atmosphere and excitement here is just unbelievable and is definitely setting the scene for an obscenely good few weeks of soccer.
We were quite lucky to be at the airport on Wednesday for the national Vuvuzela moment. At twelve o’clock everyone stopped what they were doing and went ballistic on their by blowing their Vuvuzela’s pretty much for the rest for the afternoon. Vuvuzela’s are the iconic South African trait for this world cup. It’s basically a long horn which makes an obscene amount of noise, if you watch any of the games you will know straight away what I am talking about.
Today was spent just soaking up the atmosphere. Johannesburg is packed with supporters from all over the world, everywhere you drive, walk or look there are flags flying, TV crews, team shirts and Vuvuzela’s blowing away. Our day started off on an amazingly exciting note as we all headed down to collect our tickets for the games. After that it really became real! We then headed to Nelson Mandela Square to collect the last minute essentials – hats, flags, shirts, soccer sunglasses and some extra Vuvuzela’s! Mark and Nick are adamant on trying to get in as many TV interviews as possible as this proved pretty successful in Nelson Mandela Square as they got filmed for a two on two game against a couple of crazy Mexican supporters. With a crowd around them cheering them on, they were pretty devastated when they lost – not a promising start for England. We then headed into the manic traffic around Sandton to make our way down towards Soccer City in Soweto. Pretty perfect time on our behalf as the Bafana Bafana bus drove right next to us and we got our first glimpse of the national players on their way to final training session. Luckily it wasn’t the England bus as I fear Nick might have exploded with excitement.
Soccer city is just unbelievable! There was still some last minute preparation going on and Bafana was having the last training session inside so we couldn’t get too close but we did manage a quick game of Hackey and caught the attention of another film crew. We wondered around the area and like to think we were pretty close to blagging our way to getting media passes, but to honest it was awesome just to check out the scene for what is going o be an incredible opening tomorrow.
So all in all was a pretty awesome build up day for us and we absolutely cannot wait for 2 o’clock Friday afternoon! Its going to be utter madness and I have a pretty good feeling deep down in my bones that SA are going to make the country proud in the opening game against Mexico! It’s then off to Rustenburg on Saturday for England’s first game against USA. What an amazing weekend ahead!
Hope wherever you are that you turn on your telly and see South Africa come to life!!!
Till next time,
Pip.
Pip and Doug preparing
Vuvuzela moment at the airport
Nick and Mark take on the Mexicans
Soccer City Joburg!