Cape Town City v Sekhukhune Utd

Off to the DHL Stadium, on the Cape Town waterfront to watch a not very crunch South African Premier League game – Cape Town City (14th) v Sekhukhune Utd (5th).

Our Uber driver who took us there definitely endeared himself to us by telling us he always admired Trevor Brooking (“he’s a real gentleman”). He’s a Leeds Utd fan – he’d gone to the 1972 FA Cup final with his cousin and picked Leeds, his cousin picked Arsenal, and they’d stayed fans for life.

We didn’t have tickets, but we expected we could get some on the day. It was a bit of a complicated procedure, as we found the Ticket Office but were told we had to buy them online, which we did. They then printed out a real ticket for us, which was probably not necessary, but it’s always good to get a real ticket.

We had a choice of the executive lounge (£6 a ticket) or in the normal seats (£2 a ticket). The cheap seats were definitely the right option. While getting the real physical ticket too I thought about the times I paid more than £2 for a souvenir gig ticket from Ticketmaster …

The DHL Stadium was built for the 2010 World Cup (remember the terrible England v Algeria game?) and holds 55,000. I’m guessing there were about 6,000 there today but a surprisingly good atmosphere with constant drums, singing and some vuvuzelas too.

At half time I bought a pint of Castle Lite (£2) which I was able to take back to my seat, or drink on the concourse with a nice view of Table Mountain.

The fans aren’t segregated, as we discovered when the first goals went in. Home and away fans sitting together and absolutely no aggro between either of them. It doesn’t sound like there is any abuse directed at the players or the ref either. Football matches are probably the safest place in the whole country.

Sadly for the home team, they lost 2-1. Despite all the noise during the game, no one seemed that upset.

After the match we weren’t really sure where to do but we ended up walking to a bar called Randy Warthog, which seemed like it was mostly frequented by backpackers. I got myself a Carling Black Label, which I am told is a very cool beer in South Africa. It tasted nothing like the version you get in the UK.

After this we wandered to a 24 hour cafe, Andiccio24, and got an amazingly good pizza for R175 (£7), and a Castle Lite for R40 (£1.60).