Globetrotting Liverpool fan, Pete Martin, was apprehensive of a racially-tense Cape Town, South Africa. What he found instead were the surprising kindness of fellow football fans and a bit of home away from home.
I walk to the football ground. The magnificent bowl, built for the 2010 World Cup, sits on the waterfront at Green Point. From the busy waterfront shopping centre, I stroll along the Fanwalk with the early evening sun providing an orange sky beyond Signal Hill. As I enter the stadium, two men in Everton shirts walk past. I smile and say hello – a little bit of home from home.
I stand inside the empty stadium looking down at the deep green grass shimmering in the last of the day’s sunshine. Three massive tiers of seats are unoccupied; only the small side section around me is being used. The ground has a capacity of fifty-five thousand, reduced from World Cup times, yet there will be less than two thousand fans here tonight. Its poor utilisation since the World Cup has led to calls for the stadium to be demolished less than six years after it was built.
I am blocking the way. As I turn around, I realise it is the Evertonians who wish to get past me. I jokingly tell them that I won’t move because of their shirts. After their initial confusion, I explain that I am from Liverpool and, whilst a Liverpool fan, it’s wonderful to see the blue shirts from my hometown. One of the brothers, Jeffrey, tells me that the family of four brothers have supported Everton since the 1984 FA Cup Final. A final, of course, famous for Andy Gray’s winning goal, headed almost out of the hands of the Watford keeper, and a trophy win that spurred Everton into matching Liverpool at the top of the English game for the remainder of that decade.