Posts tagged soccer

If you have yet to attend your first live World Cup match in South Africa, at one of our 10 stadiums, here are a few handy items you’ll want to pack in your match-day backpack:

A vuvuzela

If you can’t beat them, join them.  There’s no way you’re going to beat the vuvuzelas, so you may as well head down to one of SA’s local supermarkets and pick up your own for R30 ($4).  If you pay more than this (particularly in Sandton City or the V & A Waterfront), you’ve officially been ripped off.  Practise blowing your own horn before you get the stadium, it can be tricker than you realise.  However, if you can’t bring yourself to buy a vuvuzela for the stadium, you want to remember…

Earplugs

If you’ve got particularly sensitive ears or you’re going to be in one of the fully enclosed stadiums (like Soccer City or Cape Town Stadium), you might find a set of ear-plugs handy.  A stadium like the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg is mostly open (only one part of the stands covered), so the noise of the vuvuzelas escapes and you can hold a conversation with relative ease.  In Soccer City however, the roof over the stands serves almost as a lid which keeps the noise in, allowing it to reverberate around the stands.  Don’t bother even attempting a conversation.

Coca-cola bottle tops

All drinks sold inside the stadiums are sold in plastic bottles with their lids removed.  Thus, if you’re buying multiple bottles to keep you going through the match, you’re going to have to be pretty careful not to spill the 3 bottles that you’re not yet drinking from.  An easy solution is to take in 3 or 4 screw bottle tops from screw-top (500ml, 1L, 2L) Coca-cola bottles or from Bonaqua mineral water bottles (the brand of soft-drinks and water sold inside the stadiums).  Budweiser, the official beer of the 2010 World Cup is sold in 475ml plastic bottles, also with screw lids removed.

VISA card and cash

With VISA being the official (proud) partner of the 2010 World Cup, only VISA credit cards or cash are accepted inside the stadium grounds, so leave your Mastercards, AMEX and Diner’s Club cards at home and make sure that if your credit card is not a VISA, that you have enough cash with you.  With 500ml soft drinks and waters selling for R15/bottle; Budweiser at R30/bottle; Boerewors rolls at R30 each; hotdogs at R25 each and supporter flags, shirts and paraphernalia selling for a few hundreds of rands, you’ll need a fair whack of cash to see you through the game.

Camera and video camera

Attending a live game will be a sight and sound extravaganza you won’t want to forget.  Take in your camera and your video camera if you have one, and record as much as you can.  SLR cameras are fine to take into the stadiums, and you can probably get away with a telephoto lens of up to about 300mm.  Tripods and monopods might not be allowed past security, so it’s probably best not to even try.

Warm clothes (and, in CPT and PE, a raincoat)

If you’ve been watching any of the games on TV, you will have noticed that in the evening games, the fans are bundled up in layers, and layers, and layers of warm clothes. When the substitute players are sitting on the bench with a blanket over their legs, you know it’s winter in South Africa.  That means sub-zero temperatures in the evenings and early mornings and, if you’re in Cape Town or Port Elizabeth, rain and wind.  You won’t be too warm at the 4pm games with a warm jacket and at the 8-30pm games, pack your woolly hat, gloves, scarf and heavy jacket.

Pack the above into a small backpack (space under stadium seats is limited or non-existent), organise your transport to and from the game ahead of time and, above all, embrace the African World Cup experience!