It is freezing cold in my living room as I write this. It was freezing cold on the opening night of the World Cup five years ago at Soccer City. When Joburg wants you to remember things, they go for a full, immersive experience. All I need is an over-priced Bud, an over-excited junior news reporter with accreditation asking me who I worked for (“I work for The Star,” she said proudly. “Me too,” I told her. “I’m the chief sports writer.”), a stupidly tight deadline and the memory would be complete.
The 2010 World Cup was a cold event up in Joburg. It was a cold wonder of a tournament. The memory has been chilled with the news of the $10-million “donation” to Jack Warner / Concacaf, a tale that has much distance left to run as every week brings another mini revelation. The FBI will not let this rest.
In the week leading up to the World Cup, I had dinner with Neil Morrissey, one of the stars of Men Behaving Badly, at the Giles restaurant in Craighall Park. Morrissey and his friend, who owned a beer-brewing business, were shooting a TV documentary called Men Brewing Badly. The plan was to bring loads of their Morrissey-Fox blond ale for English fans to drink. Unfortunately, the two had drunk all of the beer on their trip from Dar-es-Salem to Rustenburg. Fortunately, SA Breweries came to their rescue, helping them brew 400 litres more. They had a party at the Pirates sports club in Greenside for the opening match.
Morrissey was at the Wanderers cricket ground for the warm-up match between Portugal and Mozambique. I wrote this at the time: “As the Portuguese fans danced out of the Wanderers on Tuesday night, Neil Morrissey, the Men Behaving Badly star, was celebrating his hearing returning to normal with a glass of red wine in a box in the Memorial Stand. A thoroughly good bloke, he posed for pictures with fans and paused and smiled as two little boys walked up to him and asked him if he was “Bob the Builder”. Morrissey did the voice for Bob in the children’s programme and spent five minutes chatting with the kids, who stared at him with their mouths open and eyes wide. Yes, children, Bob likes a glass of red wine or two.”
I remember Bafana playing out of their skins for parts of that first match, and then stumbling, allowing Mexico to come back at them hard. I remember a football writer sitting near me screaming in hysterical celebration at Siphwe Tshabalala’s left-footed screamer of a goal. I wondered then if he would make it through the tournament. I remember being a proud South African on that opening match, pleased at the show we had put on that day and excited for the month ahead. I remember it being cold.