Day 17 - North London Derby

Again, another day filled with so much hope, but returned so little.

After getting up and leaving the apartment, along with a fast asleep Martin, at around 7:30, I got to Joes house at around 8:15, anticipating them all to be ready to head off to Yonicks football match. Nope, all still in their pyjamas. Apparently there was a problem with Yonicks registration for the club so he couldn't play today. So the early wake up seemed a bit of a missed chance. Oh well, Joe and I took a walk down to the hardware store, where Joe picked up a few bits to do some odd jobs around the house with. He also bought me this thing that they call a 'CookSister'. Which is a bit like a doughnut, but instead of covering the dough in sugar, they cover it in coconut shreddings. Wow. It was amazing. It was crazy hot to hold but it was so warm and soft to eat, it was delicious. It started to make the early wake up less of a lost cause. After heading back to Joes, and him getting changed, Joe decided to take me down to his local church, where they were having band practice. It was nice to meet everyone, and see what it was like, but if I'm honest it wasn't really my cup of tea, sorry Joe.

After that, we back again to Joes, where I grabbed Yonick, and we drove back to our apartment to get Martin. We decided to walk to the Waterfront, as it was a nice day and was only an hours walk. Plus we couldn't be bothered to face South African public transport, which we have quickly grown to despise. After getting to the Waterfront, we stopped for a quick McDonalds lunch, before heading to Vodacom so I could get a sim for my phone, and finally onto a pub around the corner, which was showing the Arsenal-Tottenham game.

No words. We. Were. Woeful. From start to finish it was just terrible. We kept giving the ball back to them as soon as we won it. Every single player put in a terrible shift. It was disgusting to watch. Credit where it's due, though. As much as I hate to say it Tottenham really did deserve the win. It's the worst I've seen us play this season. Summed up my last 2 days, really.

After walking back to the apartment, and receiving many a taunt from Yonick (who's a Man Utd fan), we went back to Joes, where we picked up Jodi, and headed to the cinema to see the Kingsman.

What a film. Was definitely the highlight of my day, and I'd even go as far as to say it made up for the way Arsenal played earlier. It was brilliant. I'd definitely recommend it to anyone and everyone. Top film. What makes it even better was that tickets worked out to be around £2.50 each, which was a bargain! What an end to a woeful day.

We have our second day off tomorrow, and we're planning on heading down to Camps Bay beach to see if it's really as nice as everyone says it is. It'll be a chance for me to test myself against the sun, and try and continue my 16 day undefeated streak against sunburn. I'll tell you how it goes tomorrow.

Harry

Day 16 - Waterfront 5's 2.0

Day 16, and our second time down at the Waterfront 5's. A day full of so much hope, which didn't go to plan.

It started off well, Martin and I got up, had our room cleaned and went on our morning run. We're slowly managing to get further and further, as we did 2 laps of the park next to us which, in this heat, wasn't too bad. After showering and getting dressed, we headed down to the local shops to pick up some more juice, as we seem to be drinking down about 6 litres every few days.

We came home to have lunch, which was fish cakes, potatoes and salad. It didn't sound too great, and with the food we've been getting over the last week, our hopes weren't high at all. But thankfully, they were delicious.

After lunch we headed to the Communicare head office in town, to grab some posters for Joe, before dropping them off at the Learning Centre. We then made our way down to the Waterfront to prepare for our Waterfront 5's session.

We got there around half an hour early, so we had a quick kick around while waiting for the kids to show up. They eventually arrived, around 15 minutes late, which cut our session a bit shorter but we didn't mind.

After a quick introduction, we split the 7 five-a-side teams into a group of 3 teams and a group of 4. The group of 4 stayed on Martins pitch, and the group of 3 came over to mine.

As I started to get things underway I began realising a big problem. Not one of these kids speaks a word of English. I found it odd how they looked at me with such blank expressions, and realised it as I tried explaining what I wanted them to do. Eventually, after saying 'Pass', 'Move', 'Possession' and 'Keep Ball' a million times each, they started to get it. It was going well, we were playing a piggy in the middle game in their teams, and it was starting to run smoothly. Until one player (who was barefoot) got his foot stamped on by another (who was in metal studs). It was horrible to watch, because everyone who's played football for any club has been trod on at least once, and it hurts. But as I guided this kid to the side, I realised his toe was gushing with blood. He quickly hopped on my back, and I carried him over to by the little office building, blood dripping on the floor with every step I took. As I sat him down I turned to the adults and told them what had happened, expecting them to jump right into action. Oh no. That's not what happened. They handed me a dirty, old first aid kit and said "Do you know how to use this?"

Brilliant. I had to leave around 20 kids to themselves and hope they don't cause chaos while I patched up this kids toe. On went the rubber gloves, out came the antiseptic wipes and I started. After about 10 minutes of using the awful first aid kit they had, I was done, and the player had a beautiful bandaged up toe. I told him he couldn't play for the rest of the day, and had to keep his toe rested. Did that happen? Of course not. About 20 minutes later he was back involved, playing in matches, with a spare pair of trainers he must've got off someone. Had to give it to him, this kid had determination. After checking with the adults that were sat with him, I had little choice but to let him play.

Thankfully, half an hour and a ball to the Crown Jewels later, the session was over. I had one aim. Get in the car and get home. Which is exactly what we did, after picking up our Gatsby's from the office. They were beautiful, again.

Not in the mood for going out after a poor day, so Martin and I are settled downstairs, currently watching the Six Nations game between England and Wales, with our buddy George by our side.

Tomorrow hopefully watching Yonick play, then taking him down to the Waterfront to watch the North London Derby!! #COYG

Harry

Day 15 - Maja Crèche & JG High School

Today we had a full day of coaching, going from coaching kids at ages 5/6, straight to a football club of lads that would be in the year below me.

After a wake up call from Martin, with him knocking on my door to make sure I was up, we had toast, I showered, then we set off to go to the Learning Centre to get prepared for our morning session with the 2nd crèche we'll have encountered, called Maja Crèche. Yesterday, while we were following Joe to Drommedaris, we stopped off at Maja Crèche to introduce ourselves to the principal there (who was a massive Arsenal fan, and plastered photos of Luke and Jeff all over her yearly review newsletter), and make sure the session was still on.

As the kids started to enter at around 9:20, you could see on their faces how excited they were, it was adorable. They all seemed starstruck by the fact we were there.

Martin and I decided to do the same session as we'd done for Goodwood crèche, as it worked really well, and it was the same age group. So we started off with the traffic lights, which they loved. We then moved on to the relay type races, starting without the ball, then holding the ball, then kicking the ball. At first they didn't seem to quite get to grips with it, but after getting the teacher, and one of the parents involved in the demonstration, they did it really well. We ended up doing that for the rest of the session, it went on for so long. Martin and I always end a crèche session with the kids walking past us in a line, giving us high fives, and usually the kids start doing run ups to give you the hardest high fives, and your hand is left stinging by the end of it, thankfully this crèche wasn't that into making our hands fall off. After all the high fives were given, one of the parents asked for a selfie with us, which I found funny because even the adults love the fact we're over here, representing Arsenal, which gives you a really nice feeling that something so simple can make people so happy.

After Maja crèche left, we had around 3 hours to kill before we headed off to Yonicks school to coach the after school football club, so we just chilled out on the computers. Joe asked us to make a poster for the official opening of the Ruyterwacht Circle, which is being commemorated by a tournament run by Communicare on that day. Martin got straight into it, so I let him be and started playing various games on the Internet to kill time. We had a quick break at 1ish though for a hot dog lunch, followed by a dessert of Joes birthday cake from Saturday, which was absolutely incredible. We had around 6 small pieces to share between us, and I'm so thankful Martin wasn't up for eating more than one as I managed to easily demolish the 5 remaining pieces.

After following Joe to JG High School (Yonick and Jodi's school), we whacked on our boots, which are both gleaming white from their lack of use so far, and got ready to take the session. We ended up having around 20 kids which was decent to work with. Jodi came by with Joes camera and was the photographer of our session which was cool. She told me that most of the guys were turning 18 this year, meaning that if we were at school together, they'd only be in the year below me, which was a weird thought as I was coaching them.

We split the group into 4 teams, and gave each team a ball to start with and got them just passing and moving themselves around a grid. We eventually took out 2 balls to turn it into 2 5-a-side possession games, both playing in one area. After each team had played each other, we moved on to and endzone game, where 2 teams occupied either endzone, and 2 teams were in the middle. The middle teams were playing against each other, to try and pass the ball successfully to their endzone. If a pass is successful, the losing team would switch with that endzone. The guys seemed to love playing this so we allowed it to go on for a while, before bringing it into one big match to finish off.

As we had no bibs, the original idea of just organising the teams, and making them think about who's on their team or not, was a bit messy, but we couldn't do anything about it as there was no bibs to clearly identify each team. Then one of the guys popped up and said about shirts v skins. We didn't argue against it, and in no time at all one of the teams was taking their tops off. I had to make sure Jodi didn't get too over excited about the amount of topless men she was watching, but she insisted she was fine, saying that she'd taken enough photos of them!

After we ended the match, Joe wanted us to have a group photo so Martin and I got stuck in with them and had a massive team photo. Hopefully soon I'll be able to get the pictures off Jodi to show you.

Afterwards, as Jodi and Jaden got picked up by Joe, we waited for Yonick as we were given the task of taking him to football training. It was a nightmare. It took us about an hour and a half to get to where Yonick was playing, then into town so we knew where to go to get home, then back to Yonicks training ground. The trip should've taken us no more than 30 minutes. We ended up being stuck in the car for 2 hours before getting home. Meaning we are currently exhausted after being stuck in a car with no air conditioning whatsoever, and no water, as Jaden downed the lot back at JG!

We have a lie in tomorrow though, which will be nice, as we only have Waterfront 5's to coach in the afternoon. Hoping to go for a longer run tomorrow morning to try and get those fitness levels up!

Harry

Photos From Day 14 - Noon Gun With George

Photos From Day 9 - Waterfront 5's

Photos From Night Out Sightseeing with George

Photos From Day 6 - Ruyterwacht Action Soccer Club

Photos Of Our Surroundings

Day 14 - Drommedaris

2 weeks ago today, Martin and I set off, jumped on a plane and were on our way to South Africa. It's gone by so quick. 2 weeks down, 10 to go.

After having a nice lie in, we woke up and set off for our morning run. With food so cheap, and being fed a lot we needed a way to avoid coming back a tonne heavier than when we left. Plus running in this heat is helping us get used to the climate.

In yesterday's run, I was exhausted really early on, this time it was Martins turn, meaning that we both haven't properly pushed ourselves yet. Slow and steady, though.

We got back and got changed to get ready for George to take us out to the noon gun. This is basically a cannon that is fired every day at 12pm exactly, and was originally used by the British (who owned South Africa at the time) to help sailors and boatmen to know the time, so they could locate themselves and work out where to go. It's been fired over 65,000 times! They guy that fired it was telling us how they have 2 cannons, in case one of them misfires, or doesn't fire altogether, they can automatically fire the other.

The cannons used to be fired by a man literally lighting the fuse and running to get away from the noise, but now it's all wired up to the national observatory so it's done automatically.

Whatever way it's set off, it was ridiculously loud. We were told it would be loud, but the bang literally made me shake backwards. Those of you that have me on Facebook can see from the video I posted that the camera goes nuts when the bang goes off. It was really interesting all the same, and was nice to go somewhere that isn't really talked about by tourist guides, which is what we wanted, so thank you George.

After coming home and having lunch, we set off to meet Joe and Lourens at the Learning Centre, so we could follow Joe to Drommedaris, where we were just going to be there to have fun and play games with the kids that were there.

On the way, though, we almost got driven into by a taxi on the motorway. We were going at a steady pace, following Joe, when we saw a taxi creeping up next to us on the lane to our left. Out of nowhere, this taxi decides to try and move over into our lane, right where we were. Meaning Martin had to swerve to his right slightly, and thankfully, the car to our right slowed up and managed to let us steady ourselves. As the car on our right was passing by, he gave us a look as if to say "taxis, eh?"

If there's one thing I definitely won't miss from our time here is the roads. Everyone drives where they want and stops where they want, and taxis in particular are the worst of all. I hate them. Thankfully we never have to go in one, now we have the car.

We arrived at Drommedaris, and around 7 kids turned up, which was a nice number to work with. Every week, at Drommedaris, Joe likes to focus specifically on a different life skill each time. Today we were making the kids aware about the importance of washing hands, and keeping hygienic. It may sound like a basic thing, but you'd be surprised as to how little kids know about the importance of hygiene and things like that out here, so it's important that we help them out.

We also played a little game of handball with them too, which they all seemed to have fun playing which was cool, then we said our goodbyes for the week, and headed off to Atlantic Club to see the new Communicare sponsor photo, before heading home.

Martin and I didn't have any food saved for us for the evening, as we didn't fancy it, so we decided to go out for dinner. I'd been craving a curry since I found out my family went out to my favourite Indian restaurant for my sisters birthday, so that was the one place I wanted to go. Sadly, after down town for around 40 minutes, we couldn't see an Indian restaurant that did my favourite dish, a Chicken Korma, so we gave up on the Indian front. Apparently there's very few places here that do a chicken korma, so I'm terrified of having to get through 3 months without having one. It'll be my worst nightmare.

We started to walk back up the road, looking for places to eat, and ended up at a place called Da Vinci's, and oh my word. What a lucky find. It was amazing. The staff were friendly, the food was amazing, the service was quality, it was relatively cheap. It was near enough perfect (except they didn't do chicken kormas..).

I ordered the full rack of ribs, while Martin got the steak, and it's safe to say that it's the first time I can remember, that I've been defeated by a full rack of ribs. They were so large. Martin said it must've been human ribs they were that big. They were delicious aswell so that's 10/10 from me.

I've managed to get all my photos on my iPad so the next couple of posts will be dedicated to photos of the last 2 weeks, before tomorrow's post.

Tomorrow we have a full day planned, starting off with a crèche coming to the Learning Centre, before heading off to Yonicks school, to do a session with the school football team, which should be fun!

Harry

Day 13 - Goodwood Crèche & Soccer For Hope

Day 13, and still no sign of sunburn! I'm starting to doubt whether I'm a true ginger or not. It's incredible. Even Martin has a bit of red on his nose.

Today started off with an early start, I woke up at around 7:30, in order to get showered and dressed. After a quick cup of tea, we set off at 8, to meet Joe and Lourens at Goodwood Crèche, where we had our sessions with the same 4 classes that we had last week. The decision to leave early turned out to be a poor one, as we were 30 minutes ahead of schedule, and had to sit in the car to wait for Joe and Lourens before going into the school. Best be safe than sorry, I suppose.

Our sessions ran much more smoothly than last week. It helps a lot to know the abilities and characteristics of the kids you're working with. We again ran the same session for all 4 classes. Starting off with a game of traffic lights, where the kids respond differently to different coloured cones (we did red=run, blue=walk and whistle=stop), then got them into running, and dribbling to a cone and back, which is unbelievably basic, but it needed to be for the level of kids we were working with. They all seemed to love it which was nice to see.

After staying around for some lunch, which was an amazing pasta with chicken in tomato sauce (thank you Lize, Lourens' wife!), we headed back to the Learning Centre, where we chilled out for a bit before heading to a place called Khayelitsha, to go visit a group of people who work for a company called Grassroots Soccer, or Soccer For Hope.

What they basically do, is use football as a way of coaching life lessons to kids aged between 11-14. These life lessons are mainly focused on HIV/AIDS, but also are used to teach kids about safe sex, and different types of violence.

After having a chat with them for around 20 minutes, swapping stories and throwing questions at each other, they invited us to play a football match with them, which both Martin and I were completely unprepared for. It showed. We played poorly and lost 1-0 in a 15 minute match. Both of us missed glorious chances, too. I blame my inappropriate footwear, and the heat, and the lack of match fitness, and the fact the sun was in my eyes...

After that we dropped Lourens off, the Joe took us to the Learning Centre so we could pick up the car, and we headed off home, grabbing some petrol on the way.

Tonight's plan is to chill out and watch the Man Utd-Cambridge game. It's my little sisters birthday too, so I'm going to Skype her tonight. Happy 11th Birthday Leah!!

Tomorrows a late start tomorrow so it'll be nice to grab a lie in, too. George came down earlier and offered to take us to Signal Hill to watch the midday cannons go, which sounds interesting, will let you know how it goes tomorrow.

Harry 

Day 12 - Transfer Deadline Day

Transfer deadline day, or in other words, lazy day sitting in watching sky sports news, and Jim White!

Martin and I had originally planned to head out on a red tour bus, and tour the sites that Cape Town has to offer. But we were called in for an after lunch meeting today with Lourens, to talk about the week ahead.

It's a fairly standard week, but on of our crèches has been cancelled on Wednesday, so the morning off will be nice.

After that I sat down on one of the computers and sorted out my student finance for uni. I wanted to do it on the computers at the Learning Centre because the wifi back at Berghof has been poor for the last couple of days. I hope it sorts itself out soon.

After sorting out my finance, we headed off home, where we decided to chill out and watch deadline day on the tv. Which has been unbelievably boring so far. When Robert Huth to Leicester is the main story of the day, you know it's been a bad day for transfers.

We have an early start tomorrow, as we return to Goodwood crèche for a 9am start, so we're gonna call it an early night!

Harry

Day 11 - The Cape Town Supporters Club Launch

Match day! Arsenal vs Aston Villa!

The match also coincided with the opening of a new branch of the Official Arsenal Cape Town Supporters Club, which they were celebrating with by having a big braai (BBQ) before the game, and we were invited to come along!

We needed to get a lift though, and the night before, Conan didn't seem to keen for going. Luckily, overnight his mood changed and he messaged us at 8am, to say he was coming to pick us up at 1!

On goes the Arsenal shirt, then after downing lunch we met Conan outside the front of the Retirement Village. We then left to go to his mums house to pick up his brother, and his mate, who were coming to watch the game with us.

When we arrived the mood was already high, with Arsenal flags and banners being held and used for photos. But as it got closer to kick off, the atmosphere got better, as more and more people turned up.

After taking loads of photos of the supporters club, it was time to all head inside to watch the game, and what a game it was! 5-0 to Arsenal! It was incredible. After every goal the atmosphere was absolutely buzzing, and everyone was singing and chanting, it was brilliant.

To thank Conan for bring us along to the last 2 games, Martin and I also paid for him to have Premium Membership with the Arsenal Supporters Club, which he seemed happy about, which was nice.

Afterwards we hung around, as Conan's brother cooked up some sausages for us all to eat, and they were delicious. Soon enough, it was time to head off.

Conan's brother was DJing what seemed to be a private party above a restaurant down at the Waterfront, so we went along to hang out there for a little bit. He also appeared in the Rolling Stones magazine, too. So expectations were high. Unfortunately, because the parking was restricted, we weren't able to stay long enough to see him play.

After an incredible day, Conan dropped us off back at the retirement village, where I'm hoping to get an early night, as the atmosphere, aswell as the heat, has completely taken it out of me.

Harry