Okay, maybe it was a stupid idea to go to a football match without tickets. But come on. Firstly, this is South Africa, and that's the kind of thing we do over here. Secondly, this was a friendly, USA vs Australia, at Ruimsig Stadium. A friendly! Step inside, you're very welcome, sit anywhere you want, we're all friendly here! And also, I had tried, all week, to get tickets, or at least to find out whether or not you need tickets to go a friendly. I asked the Internet, I asked Computicket, I asked the lady at the FIFA ticketing centre, who looked at me blankly and told me to ask Computicket, who...well, this is South Africa. So when Saturday came, I left nice and early with my son and his friend, and we drove to the stadium and eased into the queue of cars, with their flags fluttering in the breeze, only this time there were Star-Spangled Banners and Union jacks with Southern Crosses rampant as well. Someone was waving the Stars 'n Stripes from the sunroof of their SUV, and for a moment I felt a curious sense of disconnection, as if I wasn't in Roodepoort anymore, and had somehow translocated to Kansas. I get that feeling a lot these days. Then we got to the gate of the parking lot of the stadium, and the man standing there sketched an oblong shape with his fingers, which I immediately understood to mean "ticket". I rolled down the window and said, "Can we get tickets inside?", and he said "No, you can't get inside without a ticket", and he motioned us to turn back because we didn't have tickets. But this is South Africa, so I just said, "We'll get tickets inside", and I drove in and we parked. Everywhere I looked, as we walked towards the stadium, I saw people clutching tickets in their hands. I was getting worried. I saw a man wearing the American flag on his shoulders, and I asked him if we knew where we could tickets. "Ah, we got them from the Embassy," he said, and he gave me a friendly pat on the shoulder when I sighed and said I didn't have any. A big sign at the stadium gate said "No Entry Without a Valid Ticket", and a big man at the stadium gate, with a curly wire dangling from his ear, said "No", when I asked him if we could tickets inside. My son and his friend were getting impatient and irritated, and so was I. I asked a man with an Australian Football Federation blazer, and he said no, and a man handing out tickets to schoolchildren at a trestle table, and he said no, and then I saw a man from my team, wearing my shirt, and standing outside the fence, looking on as the teams ran onto the pitch for their warm-up. He also didn't have tickets. He had a picnic cooler with him. He was ready for the game. "Maybe they'll let us all in when everyone with tickets has gone in," I said. "No," he said, "I don't think so. They're FIFA. They'll probably just leave us all standing here." But he was wrong, because a policeman came along and told us we had to move away from the fence. Ag, come on, seriously?
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Thoughts & meanderings from the heart of the power vacuum
