After waking up at around 11, we went for a run, managing 4 laps in almost midday heat, before running to Checkers to pick up some more juice. As we knew we didn't have to meet Joe at the Learning Centre until 5, we decided to do something touristy during the day, and take a tour around the Cape Town City Stadium, which was purposefully built by FIFA for the World Cup, in 2010.
As we had to go straight to a session after the tour, we had to go in our Arsenal gear, which we felt a bit uncomfortable with, because no one knew the reason for the kits, so we just looked super keen for Arsenal.
However, all uncomfortable was gone, when our tour guide brought it up in the lifts, and seemed to be amazed when we told her the reason, before using us as an example to the rest of the group as people that would purchase the box seats that we were checking out at the time.
Overall, the stadium is really nice and modern, but because it's owned by the City, no not a club itself, the lack of advertising and colour makes it look a bit boring. Plus they reduced the capacity from 68,000 to 55,000 by taking out 2 big chunks of upper tier seats, which made it look a bit odd.
Martin and I also decided that we need to book up tickets to see the last game of the season at the stadium, in the VIP seats, as they cost just over a tenner. Which is a decent price to watch a game in VIP section.
After the tour was over, we headed to the Learning Centre where we were a bit early, as the tour finished earlier than we expected. So we chilled there for a bit while waiting for Joe to take us to Edgemead Football Club, which is the biggest community soccer club in Cape Town, where our coaching session had been replaced with a big Q&A with the coaches from the club, who apparently were very keen to talk football and coaching with us, which we were more than happy to get involved in.
When we got there, we were directed into the clubhouse, into a smallish room to the left, where they had set a table up, with chairs behind for us to sit, with a load of chairs facing it, in proper press conference style, which was a bit daunting but we were excited for it.
We introduced ourselves, and explained what we were doing with Arsenal and why we were out here in Cape Town. Then the questions came firing in. But these weren't questions we were expecting, like about the players, staff and training ground. Oh no. These questions were about the coaching badges, how to encourage children to stay involved in Football, and how coaches in South Africa can get qualifications like our FA coaching levels. Some of the questions left me completely stumped, but luckily Martin used his tour guide experience to answer those ones, which was decent.
After that, food was brought in, and the Q&A ended, so everyone could socialise. We had all kinds of people coming up to us asking how we were, talking Football and opinions, and even trying to teach us some Afrikaans. Before we left, they mentioned how they wanted a day later on in our schedule to use as a coaching development-like day, where we would spend the morning coaching the kids, stopping for lunch, and then spending the afternoon showing different exercises and games to the coaches, so they could use it when coaching their teams, which sounded good to me.
Before too long it was time for us to go, as we had to somehow work out our way home after Joe had to leave early. We made it though, thanks to my amazing navigational skills.
Got home and watched the Barca-City game, where Barca deservedly won 2-1. Pundits on South African sports channels are awful though, as they were saying that if Messi scored the rebound from the penalty, it shouldn't have counted, as the clock showed it was after 94 minutes. Which is completely ridiculous because the referee decides when to end the game, and the added time is only the minimum amount that will be added. These pundits are even worse than Alan Shearer, Adrian Chiles and Robbie Savage, and they're terrible,
Harry
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