Soccer

Compared with  Swedish soccer
admission fees are very low.

It would be wrong to describe me as a soccer fan. I go to soccer matches on a regular basis – approximately once every second year. Mostly this happens in Kalmar (Sweden) together with my in-laws.

When we lived in Bloemfontein I think I attended three fixtures in four years, so during that period I was extra active.

Yesterday it happened again. This time together with a friend from Sweden. Maritzburg United vs Moroka Swallows. We came a bit late and missed the first goal, which ‘Team of Choice’ (nick name for Maritzburg) scored in the first half.

The match was not very well played but towards the end of the second half, Moroka Swallows (from Soweto) also scored a goal. We thought that this would be the result. Before the referee announced three minutes extra time, we decided to leave, but then we realised that Moroka Swallows scored a second goal.

It was nice to be there and too hear a few vuvuzelas (not so many and not all the time). I think, however, that people were a bit surprised to see two, elderly (!) white men with umbrellas climbing up the stands. It is so strange to experience the almost total absence of white people in soccer arenas. If we had attended a rugby match it would have been almost (but not totally) the opposite.

Transformation takes time!

On the stands without roof very few people were to be found.