Well its down to the Semi tonight, I do hope those Germans lose, because that brings me to the starting point of this letter.

The world cup 2010. What a joy it has been to share it with Razia and Casey and great friends at the stadiums and I must single out a mate of mine Peter Stemmet who in April of this year had zero tickets and ended up seeing 11 games…

The draw in December 2009 in Cape Town that was a wonderful night in Long Street and I remember working out the possibilities and found out Argentina should play Germany in a quarter final in Cape Town. My friends laughed…Need we say more!

The point I kept making to my friends was what part of this don’t you understand this is the World Cup, what part of world don’t you get!

We had the pessimists saying I can’t believe the crowds its will be chaos, I have a colleague at our office Marilyn who was anti the whole thing Quote Un quote “I will be out of town “. She had to take clients to one game and came back raving… I chuckled what part of world did you not get!

I saw 10 games in total every one in Cape Town except that rubbish called Italy…I did not want a ticket .I have never supported Italy and was not going to do it in 2010.

My team was Argentina (I backed them in 2006. I have a long history with the country as some of my best friends came from BA etc.)

Argentina was going to win .Period. I had the cap, shirt, jacket, and scarf. La Albiceleste (White and Sky blue) was my side, and my sports mate Peter Stemmet agreed and so did Razia, Our home, car and office became White and Sky blue.

We saw the opening game France, against the two goal keeper team…lol and then next morning flew to Jhb to see Argentina vs Nigeria… HELLO!!!!!!! This was it, the World Cup had arrived and all Cape Town was the night before was a side show. A group of us lead by Peter Stemmet went to the game at Ellis Park and words like glorious do not describe the full magnitude of what we saw.

Then it was back to Cape Town via a sweet Sunday morning deal at Soccer city, I slipped into the stadium to take pictures with not a person inside the stadium and what a fantastic venue it is.

We had three games in rain, It rained in PE can you believe it for the round of 16 match but who cared.

We found Elvis alive and well at the TstikamaForest lodge. The hotel hosts an annual Elvis festival in April every year.

I sold my extra Quarterfinal tickets to the SoccerCity game Ghana vs. the two goal keeper side to a fashion designer. Even they got swept up by the fever.

In the end, words like magic, amazing, once in a lifetime all come to mind. I thought putting something on paper will help…The silver lining did not arrive. The magic final between Argentina vs. Brazil will not happen, but who cares. The experience to take my daughter, 10 year old Casey to 3 games will live with my forever. To see my wife to be Razia so devastated when Argentina went out on that fine winters day is something money cannot buy , to walk along the fan mile with my family and great friends like Peter Stemmet in Somerset Road with Capetonians of all shapes and sizes is something never to forget ,nor sitting in PE with our great friend Zaahier who was next to us amongst a crowd of 40 000 plus

Bargain of event R100.00 and in you get into SoccerCity

Flop Rooney ,Ronaldo.

Pass of tournament Vernon to Messi from half way line to Messi at 18 yard box in the game against Nigeria . Messi brought the ball under control with his head.

Classic Goal Tevez against Mexico and Holland’s 1st goal in the Semi finals

P.S what did we spend on tickets R18130.00 ( Includes 4 tickets for quarter final cat 1.. R2100.00 a piece and 5 Cat 2 Semi tickets ) that does not get a family of 3 to see the next world cup nor does that cover a flight half way across the Atlantic to see 2014.

We felt it .Did you?