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After seeing the beautiful sunrise over Plettenberg Bay from the roof top of Plett Backpackers, it was time to make our way out of town and head off to Port Elizabeth, with fuzzy heads from our drinking the night before.
The drive took around three hours and we were joined on the motorway by lots of fellow England fans making their way to Port Elizabeth complete with flags and scarves hanging out the cars. The excitement was building! On arrival into Port Elizabeth we dropped off our hire car and we were offered a lift back into town to our hostel by one of the guys working for the car hire company which we accepted. It would be a lot cheaper than getting a taxi….
It turned out that this guy was the worlds worst driver and at one point actually drove on the wrong side of the road! We managed to get to our hostel in one piece thankfully but it was an interesting ride! Our hostel in Port Elizabeth was called Jikeleza Lodge. I had booked one room between the two of us due to the fact that no dorm rooms were available at the time of booking. We were allocated a shed! The lodge was obviously trying to cash in on the World Cup (like most places) and had rung someone like Ikea and had erected a load of wooden sheds and plonked beds in them! Despite this, it wasn't that bad. We had our own room (or shed) and it wasn't that cold so it would suffice for a couple of days! As the match was that afternoon we decided to head out straight away towards the stadium (around five hours before the match) in order to sample the pre-match atmosphere and have a few bevvies. We didn't know how far it would be, but we decided to walk towards the stadium so that we could at least see some of PE. It turned out to be quite a long walk - perhaps 45 minutes to an hour! And to be honest - from what I saw of Port Elizabeth - it was a bit of a hole. Certainly not like Cape Town or any of the towns we had visited on the 'Garden Route!' We got close to the stadium and met a few older England fans who we joined in one of the nearby bars for a drink. It was a bit dead in this bar though and I wanted to find somewhere a bit more lively. In the end we ended up going straight into the stadium and drank there, where hundreds of other fans had congregated. It was a good atmosphere, with lots of entertainment such as South African dancing, penalty shoot-out's for fans and a beer garden - where we headed to. The organisation in South Africa has been widely praised in many circles but for me, even though there were not any major issues there were a lot of basic things they did not get right. In this case it was at the bar. They were only selling cans of Budweiser - the official beer of the World Cup. But they were having to pour the 'Bud' into plastic cups and the organisation of this was bordering on the ridiculous. Maybe they are not used to so many fans drinking at games. Certainly England fans are most likely the biggest drinkers when going to matches but they were so under-prepared for so many people buying alcohol that the queues were ridiculous. More people were needed to serve and a better system, perhaps designating certain people to pour the drinks before people had ordered would have been better. Or better still - let the people pour the drinks (as we did) while the staff serve someone else, thus speeding up the queuing system. As a lady next to us remarked TIA -This is Africa! A phrase we would come accustomed to while we were there!
After a few drinks and a sing-song we headed to our seats. It was a stark contrast to the match at Cape Town, where we were situated towards the top of the stadium. Here we had seats very close to the front. Awesome! The atmosphere, as ever at an England match, was really good. The Vuvuzela's were not heard as much as the first game, replaced by the usual chanting and singing - much better! As always with England the stadium was full of England flags and fans. There wasn't a particularly large Slovenian contingent of supporters - it was all pretty much Ingerland. And the performance was a lot better. When England need to pull out a performance they usually do - and this proved the case again in this match. Jermain Defoe - replacing Heskey in the line-up scored the only goal, but in-truth it should have been more with a number of great chances missed. The last few minutes were nerve-wracking as it always is at 1-0 but once the final whistle went the place erupted - awesome! It wasn't a world-beating performance but you kind of felt England's World Cup was just beginning to gather momentum. On the way out of the stadium we heard that USA had scored a late goal in their match to qualify in first position in the group meaning that the next England match was to be in Bloemfontein. We had tickets for both matches anyway so it didn't really matter to us but I recall thinking that the USA scoring might not be a good thing…..
In much better spirits than after the Cape Town match, for obvious reasons, myself and Laura decided to go into a bar close to the stadium where we drunk a few celebratory beers before moving to a bar just down the road - recommended to us by a local. Now, we have had a good run up until now. No bad experiences, no dodgy hostels and we hadn't encountered any dodgy people or any dodgy bars. Well….this was about to change! We walked into this bar and it was kicking-off as soon as we walked in. The worlds tallest man was having a row with a group of dodgy looking England fans. I kid you not - this guy was over seven feet tall - more like seven and a half feet tall! He was a massive - and quite possibly the row that had kicked off was due to the England fans taking the mickey out of him. It calmed down after a while. I was hesitant to stay, but we met a few South African England fans in there and decided to stay for a beer or two. However two of the group we had met got their mobiles stolen and we decided to get out of there just as it was about to 'kick-off' again! I think it was possibly the dodgiest place I have ever been to. Not what we wanted after a great day seeing England win. We jumped in a taxi to the waterfront and found a pub which was much nicer…..
The story of the night did not stop there though. We ended up chatting to some Hereford fans and I mentioned that I was a Woking fan. "Those boys over there are Woking" one of them remarked. "Go over to that lad and ask him if he used to be KC Cat!". So I went over and did! For anyone that isn't a Woking fan, KC Cat is the ridiculous mascot Woking FC has. It turned out that the group were from Woking and a couple the boys were Woking fans and had a flag as well. "You are the third group of Woking fans we have met today" one of the guys exclaimed. Wherever I go in the world I always meet people from Woking. It's crazy! Afterwards we headed to another bar- Barney's with the Hereford lot. Barney's was buzzing. The atmosphere was amazing. I'm not sure that the guy playing his music there was too impressed though. With the constant England songs drowning out his cover versions and the occasional chant of "You don't know what you're doing" and "Who are ya?". The celebrations went on into the morning before we headed back to the hostel and passed out in our shed!
The next day was spent recovering and organising the next few days of our trip. I had booked everything up until Port Elizabeth, but until now we didn't know where England would play their next game so we couldn't book hostel or organise travel etc for the rest of our trip. We had tickets for both games that England could have possibly been playing in but the problem was that they were on consecutive days and we decided, after much deliberation, that it was inconceivable to go to what we now knew was USA V Ghana the evening before the England V Germany match. Getting from Rustenburg to Bloemfontein was going to be too much of a mission. The plan was to try and sell the USA V Ghana tickets - although I wasn't too confident. You see, England were expected to win the group and therefore most England fans would have these tickets to sell. Moreover, FIFA were still selling all categories for this match on the official website. We were fighting a losing battle and it turned out that we were unable to get rid of them. A real shame as one of the tickets was front row. Oh well.
Later that night we headed to the Port Elizabeth Fan Fest to watch the football and grab a bite to eat. This turned out to be a mistake in the end as Laura ate some dodgy food from an outlet in the Fan Fest and felt terrible the day before we were to head to Bloemfontein. The nine hour journey up was an experience that's for sure - it wasn't pretty (sorry Laura ha ha).We can look back on it now and laugh though!
Port Elizabeth wasn't really that nice in my opinion. It was a bit skanky and I wouldn't have felt safe walking around at night in some areas. The waterfront bars, where we spent the aftermath of the England match, were really nice and Barneys was a good laugh.I guess I will remember PE fondly because England won there and because the atmosphere was awesome rather than because the city was nice. The Fan Fest was located at the cricket ground which was a lot smaller than expected but had a lot of character for a cricket ground. All in all we had a good time but it wouldn't be first on my list to come back to if I eventually return to South Africa.
The preparations for Bloemfontein were all a bit www.lastminute.com. We booked a hire car the night before and didn't book a hostel in PE until the morning we were to arrive. We found it difficult at first and were quoted some ridiculous prices but then ran into a couple of guys who gave us a telephone number for a place and we managed to get in there. We had no idea what we were letting ourselves in for. Off to Bloemfontein then for England V Germany……I couldn't be more excited! What a match in prospect.....
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