Mexicans n' Lime, The Pope n' Condoms, Postage Stamp Authority

SOCCER CITY. Witnessing the opening match of this year’s World Cup at Soccer City in Soweto exceeded expectations. Having previous been to a World Cup opening in New Jersey in 1994 for Italy v Ireland, yesterday’s experience far surpassed the elation experienced following Ray Houghton's belter that ensured Irish glory that day.

From picking up the lads in Melville, to taking the Rea Vaya bus from Commissioner Street in downtown Johannesburg, to arriving for at carnival like atmosphere, Soccer City, it felt like we were dream walking. 

Perhaps the only down side to the day was the anticipated let down of not realising a safe and timely transport return home after the match – see comments below.

Immediately upon arriving at the stadium, the highlights had to be the inter-play and fun between the Bafana Bafana fans decked out in their banana yellow and green and the Mexican fans dressed in their red, black and green regalia from the traditional sombreros to wrestling masks to scantily clad traditional Azteca wear. 

Madly, from Cantona n' Zidane to The Hand of Henry

JOHANNESBURG. The day has finally arrived, June 11, 2010. Like the release of Nelson Mandela from prison 20 years ago on February 11, 1990 and South Africa's first democratic elections on April 27, 1994, June 11th will now join the pantheon of South African milestones

Having been fortunate enough to take part in the events of April 1994, mobilizing voters in Cape Town, its hard to believe that the nation could match the excitement and anticipation of that time.

It has. Let's just hope the queues to get onto the train from Park Town Station to Soweto are not as long as those in 1994.

As I nurse last nights tequilas, at 6.00 am this morning, I was woken by the sounds of the vuvulezas in my northern suburban complex. 

The vuvuleza has recently been described by one British journalist, as a raucous ear-splitting trumpet....

Ghana!? Are you Cameroonian? No, I am a...

HOME. In 1961, in his treatise I Speak Freedom: A Statement of African Ideology, Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s founding father and the continent’s greatest proponent of Pan-Africanism wrote, 

‘So many blessings flow from our unity, so many disasters must follow our continued disunity, that our failures today will not be attributed by posterity only to faulty reasoning and lack of courage, but to our capitulation before the forces of neocolonialism and imperialism… with innate respect for human lives, the intense humanity that is our heritage, African unity will emerge not as a Great Power whose greatness is indestructible because it is build on fear, envy and suspicion, nor won at the expense of others, but founded on hope, trust, friendship and directed to the good of all mankind.’

For me as a non-national living in South Africa, the lowest point, (dare I say the darkest hour) were the xenophobic attacks of May 2008 directed primarily at non-South African Africans leaving many dead and injured and countless other displaced in makeshift refugee camps from Cape Town to Johannesburg. 

It is against this bleak backdrop that one reflects upon South Africa’s journey from post-apartheid liberation, national reconstruction and reconciliation, to hosting the 2010 World Cup. 

From 1976 to 2010, tomorrow, Soweto will again be the centre of the world!

Its amazing to drive around Johannesburg today and see the flags of the competing nations prominently displayed and sold by hawkers on virtually every street corner. Since I thirst for...

Mexico are no World Cup minnows

HOME. Two days to go and here I go… an opening salvo!? I blog therefore I am… not exactly. I will dispense with a blogger’s manifesto. Simply, what I seek to create here is space to talk about this beautiful African World Cup.

South Africa is my home.

I’m excited. The atmosphere is electric! For, it is under the Africa skies where I lay my weary head at the end of the day and in the mornings where I rise to the fresh, cool, Highveld air.

I love living in South Africa. I love football. A footie ‘player’ for over 30 years, today more than anything I am simply a fanatic!

Poverty, corruption, neo-colonialism and the erosion of the rule of law remain the scourges that we fight against.

Will the arrival of the World Cup on African shores do anything to eradicate these evils?

I think not. In fact, indications are that the stench of corruption is not far off when it comes to the allocation of World Cup tenders.