World Cup in the Karoo
HUCK heads into the desert plains of the Karoo to see how far the World Cup spirit has spread through South Africa.
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If the football World Cup has yet to arrive in the further reaches of South Africa, it’s little wonder. Driving inland on the R27 highway, away from rural Elandsbaii on the west coast, through the snow-capped peaks of the Cederberg towards the Great Karoo, the population fades to nothing. In a day of driving, we see just three cars and each one waves feverishly at the novelty of passing strangers. Towns appear out of the dust on the horizon and fade just as quickly. These are mostly one-horse towns: Elandsbaii, Doringbos, Calvinia, Carnarvon, Vosburg, Britstown. All linear developments with mud back streets that funnel off the main tar thoroughfare, normally potholed and always unmarked. Towns steeped in the tradition of the Voortrekker with streets bearing the names of famous Afrikaaner leaders like Strydom, Malan and Kruger. And in every town, there’s a simple church spire on a white washed square with RDP housing on the outskirts for the farm workers.
Inland South Africa is harsh. The open plains bake in the day and freeze solid at night. The wind sweeps across the vast plains peeling away the topsoil to leave a desolate and barren landscape that’s farmed by the hardened Afrikaner and his loyal, mostly coloured, staff. The fact that rugby is the main sport here seems obvious. These are hard people that relate to a game of attrition. Football, with its prancing and delicately coiffeured stars, doesn’t fit the bill. Green Point and the fan parks of Cape Town feel far away. Here in the backcountry, it’s neon bars, brandy and coke and die Blou Bulle rugby team. But this is why we came, how deep does the sentiment for this World Cup run?
Though it may look, sound and feel conservative, inland South Africa has a warm heart. It just takes a little time to work past the dour exterior. Initially treated with indifference by this apathetic audience, it seems that the World Cup is now alive out here too. The bars, though sparse, play the football rather than the cricket. The one radio station offering live match coverage is the popular Afrikaans language station. The presenter explains the interruption to the standard roster but does not apologise for it. It is the World Cup after all.
In Calvinia, a tiny town on the edge of the Karoo where we pull in for breakfast, there’s a TV going up in the local coffee shop, a little late admittedly as Bafana are all but out, but there’s sufficient local demand to warrant the expense. “People want a place to watch together” says the owner, a new soccer convert who vows to continue her support after the cup moves on. A lone vuvuvzela hangs in the window, the last one in stock.
In Clanwilliam, we meet Peanut outside a one-price store draped in the flags of the participating nations, with knock off kits on sale inside despite being claimed as “real Nike” by the owner. Peanut has watched every game.
The town hall of conservative Williston flies the Bafana colours and the local guesthouse advertises its commitment with an assortment of competing nations’ flags. In Carnarvon, we play street game with some of the local boys, one of whom is wearing a Manchester United kit. He’ll watch the England game tonight but at home. For us he recommends the hotel bar which will be full of “Boers”, as he puts it. But he adds that “they’re getting into it.”
Pulling up outside the hotel bar, we see the parking is full of pick-ups. Inside and the bar is no different to the many we’ve frequented. Smoke haze, very male and draped in Rugby flags. The men at the bar are working on installing the world’s largest satellite field for photographing deep space. No matter the final size, the vast surrounds of the Karoo will swallow it.
They drink hard with calloused hands and talk in language roughened around the edges by days in the dust caked fields and time in the military fighting the border wars for the Apartheid governments. They’ve kept black Africa at arms’ length but when it comes to the cup, they are enthusiastic. They’ve watched the Bafana games and will watch the last gasp. They may even follow after the cup is over, if Bafana win.
For them, the most important aspect of the World Cup was the final of the Rugby Super 14 that played in Soweto for the first time at the newly built Orlando stadium. This saw 80,000 conservative rugby fans in the heart of Soccer City as a warm up for Soweto in dealing with crowds and a harbinger of what was to follow. “It was wonderful, why didn’t they do this 10 years ago, we could have made some real progress,” says one man. “You had the whities supporting Soweto and the Kaffirs supporting the rugby,” says another. His tone and choice of language saying all one needs to know about the dichotomy of South Africa today.
In the background, England labours to a draw against Algeria and the players bitch and moan. Outside it’s minus three degrees and a young boy in a moth eaten fleece jumper keeps watch over our parked car for pocket change. Back inside, the manager offers us a room for the night and on the house in support of our trip.
Driving on the next morning, the roads are straight and the landscape bare and barren until the fertile fields of Bloemfontein - dubbed ‘The City of Roses’ - inject some life and colour. Cars are flying flags from the roofs once again, wing mirrors are decked in the colours of the Rainbow Nation and the vuvuzela returns. It’s an intrusion that’s welcome after a few days of silence.
The banked stands of the Freestate Stadium come into view. Far from the beautiful edifices that grace many of the host cities, the stadium was adapted from the 1995 rugby stadium and its traditional steel construction seems entirely apt, mirroring this harsh, desert terrain we’ve just passed through. The stadium though is buzzing in preparation for tomorrow’s match between Slovakia and Paraguay. The World Cup once again feels tangible.
Yet the cup is alive in the countryside too. However, with an abstract and oddly ethereal presence compared to the noise and buzz of the cities. But after all the searching it feels good to be so close once more. It’s from these stadiums that the narrative that weaves its way through the nation, and indeed our trip, begins. We’ve arrived back at the source.
Check out more on Tim Conibear and Hanli Prinsloo's Surf Soccer Road Trip blog.
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World Cup in the Karoo (text) by Tim Conibear is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
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