What ‘s worse than not having a ticket to the big match? Having a ticket but not making it to the game, writes Jon Swift
THE phone call came in the early hours of Friday morning. The language emanating from the instrument was a choice mix of the more neanderthal part of Nether-landic and the more basic of available Anglo-Saxon phraseology.
The big man was, in a word, angry. He was also very cross and also annoyed. For the sake of brevity — rather than any real attempt at censoring the big man with the ruck-roughened features — here is the nub of the nocturnal wake-up call.
“It is,” he said in barely concealed fury, “a moerse bogger op.” It seemed a good time to shake the sleep out of your eyes and enquire — gently, during a lull in the invective — where he was calling from and what the problem was. Apportioning blame was for a later juncture.
“Some blerrie dorp in the blerrie Karoo,” was the short version. “The problem is yesterday’s game at Newlands. You maybe heard die Bokke were playing the Aussies?”
Sarcasm, you may have become aware even at this early stage, was not one of the big man’s strong points. In his younger days, you could have given him true strength in the second row, the line-outs and the fierce stuff behind the ref’s back, but never sarcasm.
It seemed a good time to ask the big man to slow down somewhat, and take it from the top.
“You know the game,” he repeated, stating the obvious. The South African-Australia opener to the ’95 World Cup had all but stopped the country stone dead in its tracks.
“You know I had a ticket for the game?” he continued. This is again stating the obvious. The ticket had cost a considerable amount of your money and the calling in of more than a handful of favours to organise for the large gentleman.
“And you know that ticket was on the halfway line?” Again the affirmative. The position of the seat had been the subject of much vigorous discussion before the asking price had been agreed on. “And you also know that my neef farms in the Karoo?” This is a new one, but in the general theme of the conversation, a point you concede has some basis in the truth.
“Everything was right,” he continued. “I had the ticket. The boss had given me a week off. That’s a day to get to Cape Town. A day to watch the game and then two days to party after we gave the Wallabies a pomp.
“I loaded the bakkie and left early on Wednesday. I checked everything … verkykers … biltong … brandewyn. Everything! I was making good time until I saw the gryspad that goes to my neef Hentie’s farm.
“It was just getting to that time of the day when the beer in the bakkie is getting warm and I know Hentie always has cold beer, so I made a quick draai. I also thought I could sleep there the night and then go through to Nuweland in the morning.
“Hentie’s Magda and the kids were visiting with her mother and Hentie was ready for company. The beer was cold and we sat and chatted. You know the things … Campese gaan ‘n klap kry … die Bokke gaan hulle vreet … just general things.
“The beer got min. I got a bomb of brandewyn out the bakkie and we started a braai fire while we looked at the stars and talked rugby and how the Boks were going to give the Wallabies ‘n pak slae.
‘After we practised a few verses of Shosholoza, together, we made plans about getting to the game together in Hentie’s car. He had it all organised. Parking just five minutes from the ground. Hentie showed me where to sleep and told me to park my bakkie in the big shed.
“He wasn’t walking — or talking — so well by then, so, when he went to bed, I reversed the bakkie into the big shed and started unpacking the things. Just then, a wind came up and blew the door closed. Man! I shouted. I banged on the sides of the shed and I kicked the door. Nothing! So I thought, not serious. I’ll doss on the lucerne in the corner and wake Hentie in the morning. So I slept.
“The next morning it was the sound of Hentie’s car that woke me. I could just see the dust going down the road through one of the cracks in the door. Man! Again I shouted. Again I banged on the sides of the shed and again I kicked the door.
“It was around the time that the last of the dust settled back that I knew I was in trouble. Couldn’t open the door. A ticket for Nuweland, and here I sit in the middle of the bliksemse Karoo.
“Hell man. I didn’t know what to do. Then I saw the ladder against the back wall. I climbed up and got out between the roof and the back wall where Hentie hadn’t fixed the iron back properly. I went round to open the door and there was this donerse groot lock and chain on it.
‘I couldn’t get back in. And I couldn’t get into the house. No bakkie. No phone. No nothing.
“But ‘n boer maak ‘n plan. So I went around the back and had a look. There, under the tarpaulin was wheels. No great wheels, but at least something to get me to Newlands.
“So I fired the thing up and started to follow the road Hentie had taken. Not fast you understand, but as least moving towards Cape Town. Nothing was going to stop me. Not even Hentie’s gate which took a bit of damage when I was still trying to work the brakes out.
“Anyway, it was starting to go well and I had all the gears and the pedals worked out by the time I got to the main road and turned right towards the game.
“Man it was all going great until the police van pulled me over about 10km down the road. They pulled me onto the sypad soos ‘n krimineel and said: ‘That’s Hentie’s vehicle … en jy’s dronk’.
“I think my big mistake was to start arguing … and then showing them my ticket for the big game against the Aussies.
“The cop just laughed and said: ‘Meneer, jy gaan nie ‘n donder Nuweland toe op Hentie se combine harvester’.
“So here I sit. It’s the middle of the blerrie night and I’ve been here all the time the Boks were playing the Aussies. No TV in the cells. Nie eers ‘n donderse radio nie. So I want two things from you. Send the bail money first thing … and the cops are laughing so hard at me ek ken nie eers die blerrie telling!”