By Hilton Heydenrych: Our Man in Cape Town

Kim Jong-il gets down to some serious football…..

Phew! Hosting the World Cup is tiring stuff (and it doesn’t leave much time for blogging!).  It’s one thing when the event is on distant shores and you catch some games on TV – some with your mates, some while you do the cooking – and the highlights of the rest.  Here it’s at least half a day gone when you go to the stadium: one hour on the Fan Walk, another to get through security, another to soak up the pre-game atmosphere, two for the game and another back down the Fan Walk.

Then there’s the Fan Fest.  The 4 pm game is perfect when you have a five-year-old: pick her up from crèche at mid-afternoon and walk or bus to the Grand Parade (still only quarter full if the early game wasn’t a biggie); let her scamper around until the opening whistle; then enjoy the crowd as it swells with the post-work arrivals and the game builds to its climax.

And let’s not forget the pre-match barbeques and dinner parties (three in the first week!), often held by friends who wouldn’t even know the World Cup was on if it was on another continent, but have now pasted the schedule on the fridge and use it to organise their social calendar.

And if you thought you might get some work done, you wouldn’t have factored in the giant rental screen installed in the tea-room, and powered by hydrogen fuel cells – an artefact of the department’s research (Yes, there are some of us on the dark continent who have heard of “the environment”!) with the side benefit of keeping the coverage going during Tuesday’s unexpected campus blackout.

OK, enough preamble, what of the event?  Well, Day One was sheer euphoria – somehow keeping Mexico out in the first half and then an opening goal to die for – it’s one thing they can never take away from you, Simphiwe: scoring the first goal of the World Cup.  And despite the late equaliser, a feeling that we were on the board and anything was possible.  The Fan Walk that night was drenched in yellow and drowned in vuvuzelas (Yes, we do love them!).  There were a few drawbacks at the stadium that night – the scrum-like melee at the security entrance (some friends only got seated a minute before the opening whistle), no food available at half-time (“Sorry, we’re still cooking the sausages”), and a game so boring that even the accountants left early – but otherwise we woke up a happy nation on Saturday morning.

With a few exceptions, not much has lived up to that opening salvo.  The “African World Cup”, with its implicit promise of a multitude of home-continent teams in the latter rounds, is – courtesy of five losses, two draws and a single win (and that only by virtue of a last-gasp Ghanaian penalty) – in danger of having very few.  The tournament so far has also been one of efficient defence trumping entertainment: a dull draw for England; an own-goal saving the disappointing Netherlands; Brazil struggling to overcome North Korea; and, finally and fittingly for this theme, the Swiss machine cutting down Spain.  And, worst of all, coming off the crest of Bafana-mania in game one, was the dismal showing of the home-team last night.

And what about those “other benefits” of hosting?  Until last night the “national unity” thing was looking great but that has been replaced by a “now we need a miracle” depression.  Despite the sunshine of the opening days, tourist-attendance up Table Mountain was “good but not great” (Frenchmen too despondent after their dull Uruguay draw and rugby drubbing at the hands of the Springboks?) and then the rain came for four days.  There is hope today, though – glorious, crisp, post-rain weather (with more of the same predicted for tomorrow), and English fans flocking to the city’s attractions.

And there have been a few personal highlights too: my daughter, having practised the national anthem relentlessly for weeks, finally beaming with irresistible pleasure as she stood hand on heart in front of the TV and belted it out; joining the Fan Fest crowd in a delirious celebration when African hero Drogba came on, broken arm and all, against Portugal; and waking up on the couch from a mid-second-half doze, to witness a wild North Korean celebration as they pulled back a late one against Brazil.  Now if only Bafana could produce that miracle…