I am not so sure that Bafana and the Boks at the same venue actually works, but a day as a guest of Energade in the VIP suite with fellow media type definitely works!
Tank Lanning
A half full stadium for Bafana Bafana, but still a pretty good vibe, a dreadful atmosphere in a three quarters full stadium for the first half of the Boks, fewer people for the second half of the Bok game, but a much better vibe, and then a few stragglers for the concert.
Throw in a few headache inducing vuvuzelas, and I am not sure the concept worked. Perhaps unfair to scrap it completely as it might have worked better had each of the sides faced more popular opposition, but all it seemed to do was emphasise the difference between the two sports.
The Boks were on fire in the second half, though, and it was fantastic to see Morne Steyn throwing the ball around a bit. With 3 big injuries, 2 yellow cards, and very little in terms of defensive structure at the driving mauls, Argentina did not offer much in terms of a test for the Boks, though. Massive contributions from Duane Vermeulen and Willem Alberts saw the Bok pack batter the Pumas, and that laid the platform for the runaway second half. Beautiful to watch!
And no withstanding the vuvuzelas, I had an awesome time on Saturday as a guest of Energade in the VIP hospitality zone … Not quite the VVIP section with Fikile, FW and Thabo, but then that did look a smidgen stuffy …
With the likes of Darren Scott and Simon Hill from Ballz radio, Ben Karpinski from Follow the Bounce and the entire Energade team, we were given a trial of what they are giving away in a competition that opened yesterday …
It’s called ‘Guess what else the Boks put in’ … The weekly prizes are tickets to local Rugby Championship games, while the Grand Prize is a VIP trip for 3 to watch the Boks vs the All Blacks at Ellis Park on October the 5th (Travel, accommodation and hospitality tickets included)
Think you know the Boks? Enter on Facebook (http://bit.ly/16efSln) … Answer the question right and you could win! There are new questions every week, each correct answer gets you an entry into the Grand Prize draw.
For another chance to win follow @EnergadeSA on Twitter, answer the question on Mondays and Fridays and you could win rugby jersey vouchers and 6 packs of Energade …
Below a few pics of our day at FNB …
I disagree Tank, I was at the stadium and I think the experiment was a huge success. The atmosphere for both games was wonderful (at least in the section of the stands where I was sitting way up in the nosebleeds) and if we are ever going to really commit to transformation in rugby and other sports, SARU and SAFA are going to need to repeat this kind of event. Yes there were many empty seats, but remember that FNB holds 80 000 and the opposition was only a second string Burkina Faso and Argentina. If this had been, say, Bafana vs Egypt (or for that matter Pirates vs Zamalek, which was played to a full Orlando stadium that same night) and the Boks vs the All Blacks, that stadium would have been packed.
Have you ever seen such a mixed crowd at a sporting event of any code in South Africa? If both soccer and rugby in SA want to grow their fan and player base beyond the current tribally fractured niches, this kind of event will go a long way to making that happen.
I also thoroughly enjoyed watching the changeover of the field, from a technical perspective. Perhaps not the cheapest use of space and time, but to my mind worth it. And FNB/Soccer City is such a magnificent stadium…a great day all round.
Travelled all the way from Mossel Bay, was definitely worth it! Interesting times on Metrorail, wish it could have been just as fast as Gautrain. Great mixture of cultures and vibe a bit luke warm to start off but Boks second half blew us away!
See you next year for #Unite4Mandela!