Footy tonight and footy past

I’m off to watch South Africa take on African Champions and second-tier Ebola carriers Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium this evening. It’ll be my fourth time watching the national team and I have yet to see them win.
Or… er… draw, actually.

The first Bafana Bafana game I saw was seven years ago yesterday, as it happens: Zambia in an Afcon qualifier at Newlands. South Africa weren’t very good that day and Chris Katongo scored a hattrick in 11 minutes for Chipolopolo ruining the return of Benni McCarthy from international exile. It finished 1-3. It wasn’t great.

And then, because of the World Cup and the politics of SAFA, we didn’t see another Bafana game in Cape Town until after the World Cup. Then, we got to see them play the USA at the Cape Town Stadium in the Nelson Mandela Challenge in November 2010. South Africa weren’t very good that day, and lost to a second half goal from Juan Agudelo goal.

We shouldn’t forget the last time I saw them, either. 8th January last year, against a decidedly under-strength (read: “B-team”) Norway. South Africa weren’t very good that day and eventually lost a really, really boring game to Tarik Elyounoussi’s goal just before half time.

South Africa have won one first-class game at the Cape Town Stadium: a 2-0 win against the Central African Republic in March last year. I wasn’t there, but I was reliably informed that the Central African Republic weren’t very good that day. And yes, there were the CHAN games too, but those don’t really count.

So Bafana’s record is fairly unspectacular in Cape Town, and even more so when I’m watching them. New coach Shakes Mashaba has requested everyone to come out and support the team this evening, but if he knew my history with watching his side, he’d probably be less keen to see me there.

The stadium in Sudan was fully packed to capacity. I hope it will also be the case in Cape Town.

Well, no it won’t. I’m not sure what sort of crowd they’re expecting, but I am told that the lower tier has sold out and they’ve opened up the second tier for bookings. That would probably mean somewhere between about 25,000 and 30,000 tops.

I’ll try and snap a few photos this evening and put them on twitter (tonight) and Flickr (maybe tomorrow).

Cut & Paste Disappointment

With Mrs 6000 getting up early for Colin each and every morning, I do the late shift. The late shift actually isn’t too bad – all it involves is not putting the dog to bed too early, because then the dog wakes up too early. Hardly revolutionary stuff. It doesn’t always work, and in fact last night it didn’t work at all and so we’re all a bit knackered this morning.

But that’s not the point of this post.

I was actually quite looking forward to yesterday evening’s late shift, because in an effort to keep me awake, I had pre-determined that I would watch England’s European Championship qualifier against Switzerland. I’m aware that if it was to be anything like England’s friendly against Norway last week, I may have struggled to combat the extreme soporific forces, but I had high hopes and they were only to be dashed by SuperSport, and not by another dull England performance. Because SuperSport weren’t showing it.

Previously, I would have raged a bit and then wondered what was going on and then raged further, more at frustration of not knowing why it wasn’t on, rather than the actual fact that it wasn’t on. But these days, we have twitter, and a quick look at SuperSport’s timeline told me that I wasn’t the only one wondering why we were missing out:

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And let’s not be all South Africa-centric here – this is for the whole of Africa, including the footballing hubs of Nigeria and other countries in Africa that like to watch football. Beeg audience.
So – are they trying to get the rights? Will they get the rights? Er…

Hmm.

Once this week’s matches are over with, we have about 4 weeks before the next international break, which will feature more European Championship qualifiers, including England against THE MIGHTY San Marino. Hopefully, SuperSport will have sorted out this rights issue before then: after all, we’re paying quite a lot of money to be able to watch these sorts of things (and let’s face it, there’s not a huge amount of other stuff on DSTV that’s worth the subscription).

Meanwhile, Afcon qualification takes over on Wednesday evening. And although SuperSport do have the rights for that, I’m going to to go an watch Bafana Bafana v Nigeria at the Cape Town Stadium, simply because I can.

A tale of two… Uniteds

Last night’s Carling Cup action brought shocks galore – if by ‘galore’ you count four Premiership teams falling to lower league opposition.

The big one for most people was the hilarious 4-0 drubbing of Manchester United by League 1’s MK Dons. As was noted by one astute individual – Louis van Gaal looked like he was about to cry:

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And while it was funny, it was also sad that Shrewsbury’s win at Leicester was overlooked, and that West Ham’s home defeat to the mighty Red And White Wizzzzards of Sheffield United didn’t make more headlines. Yet another Premiership scalp after our amazing cup run last season,and, given that this was the first meeting of the teams since the infamous Tevezgate scandal, an especially nice one to take.

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The Blades had to work hard for their win on penalties, but to take a young team down south to a Premiership ground, hold them for 120 minutes and then pop in five out of five penalties is no mean feat. No wonder Nigel was happy.

No real point to this blog post save to record this for posterity. And that has now been done.

Football reviews

Too few people follow Rochdale FC. Considering that they are over 100 years old and have a very cool stadium name: Spotland, they deserve more fans. But really who is going to take the plunge and support a football team if they don’t know exactly what it’s like watching one of their matches away from home?

No-one wants that sort of uncertainty.

Step forward rochdaleawaydayreview.wordpress.com, your number one portal to all things rochdaleawayday and the brainchild of tazzydjr (Marky D):

Bio: I’m aiming to be an up and coming Football Photographer, I own my own Digital Camera which i will be using in most of my blog’s, I’m learning new things everyday look forward to all feedback

Within just a few lines of Marky D’s Chesterfield review, I was hooked:

I got picked up at 12PM the journey were relaxing felt strange going by car to an away match, but it were nice about talking about Rochdale on the Journey with fellow Rochdale Fan’s, We arrived at 1.40PM, went to the Ground to get ticket’s so we wasn’t queuing for them. Then walked for an good five minutes to the nearest pub which were Derby Tup, This pub wasn’t cheap i got an Guinness which came to £3.50 then beore we went got an Half an Guinness which came to £1.70,

Superb. Although drinks be expensive, yo.

What follows is a detailed breakdown of Marky D’s day in Chesterfield, a game which the ‘Dale lost 1-2. It’s difficult reading, but not because of the heartbreaking result.

We go again though, and his pièce de résistance is surely the trip to Newport at the end of last season. Yes, there’s footy to be watched – quality footy at that, but first…

I had breakfast and coffee then left Rochdale Train Station at 8.17AM arrived at Manchester Victoria for 8.37AM then walked up to Manchester Piccadilly on the way then found out which platform my train would be on then popped into Sports Direct at 8.45AM to get some Pink Pants there were one problem they were too big then i got 9.30AM train Direct into Newport. I had lunch at 11.10AM. I arrived at 12.35PM, we were counting down the hours and had a laugh. Then got a Taxi went to find Spytty Park a.k.a Newport Stadium which is Newport County’s last stadium and the new home of Llanwern Association Football Club at 1PM.

It’s detailed, I’ll give him that. I wonder if he makes notes to help with remembering all those times?

And the photography, presumably taken with his own Digital Camera gives a pictorial description to the whole thing, in case (for some reason) you are struggling with the word bits.

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I have absolutely no idea what’s going on here, but suddenly the pink pants are in there. They do look a bit big though. Also confused about the Southampton scarves, given that this was Newport v Rochdale. And finally, maybe pointing the camera slightly more to the right might have helped. But what do I know?

IT LOOKS LIKE A GREAT DAY OUT.

In fact, they all do. So go and have a look at his website cos it were an good read  thenmaybe you want  donate toward his next Half an Guinness,

Thanks Stu

New Commonwealth Games event unlikely to be popular

Google Now was already great and it continues to get steadily better as well. I’m also reliably informed that when one is in a developed country, rather than a developing one, Google Now is even more useful. I will report on this next time I find myself in such a position.

Still, like all young technologies, Now is still going through a few teething problems and while it’s hit the nail on the head as far as my footballing preferences go, the link below that also demonstrates that it’s not perfect just yet.

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The story is question is this one from Newport in Melbourne, Australia.
Having read through it, I can see absolutely no link with the Commonwealth Games whatsoever, so I’m really not sure why Now thought that there was any connection.