Hot-Shot

The last few days I've been getting further into Hout Bay life. I went food shopping with Tom and Linda on Saturday, enjoyed a lunch with some of their friends on Sunday, and went to Georgia's Sports Day on Monday. And as well as all of that excitement, I've been continuing with work.

Today I went into Cape Town, as I needed a few bits and pieces. Last week I played football in some dodgy Primark plimsolls, so I needed a proper pair of trainers to play in. And due to the excessive wear and tear on said £2.50 footwear, I needed a new pair of plimmers. So after being dropped off at St George's Mall in downtown Cape Town, I located and purchased said items, and went for a bit of a walk.

For those of you who don't know, Cape Town is a town on the sea, with a big harbour at one end, and a big mountain at the other. St George's Mall is somewhere in between - and with my limited geographical knowledge of a town I barely know I'd say pretty much slap bang in the middle of the city. So a quick walk down to the Waterfront (the thing I wrote about a few blogs ago - loads of shops, restaurants and attractions - busiest place in Africa) shouldn't take too long, right? Wrong. It didn't help that I was taking the walk right in the hottest part of the day (and in Cape Town it gots hot, sticky and uncomfortable) and wasn't 100% where I was going. I was going based mainly on instinct and having seen a cartoon map of Cape Town a few days ago. So after wandering down a few dusty streets (with a lot of roadworks going on) amidst the hustle and bustle of the city, I realised that it was probably much further than I first thought. This was about 5 minutes in to my walk. The bus terminal wasn't far away, if I stop now I could curse my foolishness at walking an unnecessary few hundred yards and head off home. Or I could stubbornly chose to keep going. I kept going.

Eventually I got into the Waterfront complex (which itself is huge. Like a really long strip of land with loads of things happening). After an already long walk, and with still a fair distance before I got to the main bit where everything's going on, I decided to continue with my local knowledge, and take a pretty obscure shortcut. To start, walking under a bridge when the main road went over it looked a good idea. The main road went a really round the houses route to get there, whereas this small path was aimed straight at the "Wheel of Excellence", which was my target (it's like the London Eye but not as good). This proved to be a mistake. The reason the main road goes off on a really odd angle is because there is quite a large area of water (also known as the Pacific Ocean) which separates my path from the Wheel of Excellence. As the crow flies, it's much shorter, but sadly I am not a crow. So after my already long walk from St George's Mall to the Waterfront Complex, after reaching a dead end I then had to double back on myself and go a much longer route again.

Eventually I got there. My mood and tired legs weren't aided by the fact that a bridge that connects one side of the harbour (which I needed to walk through) was raised, a la London Bridge. So I had to wait for this bloke on his little dinghy to go through (which he did very slowly) and then for the bridge to go back to it's original position before I could eventually pass. So overall, the "short walk" that I envisaged turned out to be a 40-45 minute trek through the city. Oh well. After all of that I treated myself to a burger and a chocolate milkshake. And because the waitress liked me I got some onion rings thrown in for free. Result.

After making the return journey back into the middle of the city, I got the bus back to Hout Bay. When driving, the route along the ocean road normally takes about 20 minutes. In England (and pretty much any other country I've ever got a bus in) there are pre-designated bus stops where people stand and wait, and can get on or off when the bus stops there. The driver knows where to stop, and the people know where they have to get off. The system works well in my opinion. In Cape Town, people randomly flag the bus down as though it were a taxi. And even when the bus clearly displays "HOUT BAY" on the front, they then ask the driver if they route can be changed purely to accommodate them. "Can you take me to Green Point". No. He can't. Because this bus is going to Hout Bay. Not Green Point. That would be the obvious thing for the driver to say, but instead he makes a massive detour from the route just to drop off this one person who didn't even have the decency to wait at a designated bus stop. And then whenever people want to get off, they just stand up, wave at the driver, and regardless of his position in the road or traffic around him, he then immediately stops the vehicle, and allows the people to get off.

This public taxi service means that the bus has to keep stopping to let people on, and keep stopping to let people off. And because the bus is acting as a private taxi, it will stop outside someone's front door, before starting again and carring on another 10 yards before stopping again as their neighbour was on the bus. Lunacy.

Anyway, this potential 20 minute journey took well over an hour. But it did drop me right outside the front of the estate.

As I said last week, a group of dads and older sons play football down at the local school every Monday night. What with it being sports day yesterday, it was moved to today. Last week, as I hadn't done any sport for a long time, my normally superb fitness was shot, and because I hadn't played football in a while, I had the proverbial "touch of a rapist". Today, I was quite frankly brilliant. Playing for the first time in my brank spanking new Nike astros, I scored a top-class hat-trick.

My first came after a defender miscontrolled it. Playing in midfield, I'd arrived late in the box, hoping to feed on the scraps. And when the ball played in from the wing popped up, I sent an opportunistic left foot volley from 12 yards right into the top corner. Great stuff.

My second (my favourite) came from a corner. The ball was played in from the left, while I hung back on the edge. It was taken down by one of our players, and after a few loud calls was rolled back to me. When trying to think of a similiar goal, sadly the only one I can think of was St*v*n G*rr*rd against Olympiakos a few years back in the Champions League. (You may have to cast your minds back a long way to remember Liverpool playing in that competition). I swept it from the edge of the box through a crowd of players, and it fizzed into the bottom corner, leaving the keeper no chance.

My third wasn't that exciting. After playing a one-two and setting up our striker, I saw his shot saved, but like the true poacher that I am (fox in the box) I turned in the rebound from a few yards out.

The hat-trick was good for a number of reasons. One - it's actually a very competitive game. It's taken very seriously by everyone involved, and the standard is very high (probably up there with what I play on Sunday mornings). Nobody likes to lose, so every challenge is fiercely contested and every goal celebrated. Two - it was a match winning contribution. While my first had made it 1-0 to us, at half time we were 5-1 down; a position nobody likes to be in. After a rousing team talk from our captain, we reshaped and blitzed them in the second half, eventually winning 7-6. Three - I was playing in midfield; not a natural scoring position. And four - before today I hadn't actually scored in about two years. Even though I'd knocked a few in in training, in the numerous games since my last goal (Tonbridge away, January 2009) for numerous teams (Hamsey Rangers, Warlingham Colts, the Caterham School Firsts) I hadn't got any in games since that scrambled one yarder in the Tandridge League. So I was pretty chuffed just to get my name on the scoresheet, let along bagging the match ball. (I wasn't really allowed to keep it).

Anyway, the other boys were so impressed with my performance that I've been invited to play for the Republic of Hout Bay in their matches on Thursday evenings. If my legs aren't too tired after all of that walking (or if my feet have recovered from the numerous blisters that playing football in new trainers always causes)I'll bring you further updates on my African football career!

Sorry for that being a really long post, but I haven't been doing many recently and thought you might appreciate a real epic one. I'm making no apologies for massively bigging myself up though. Will