A Local Derby at Ellis Park, Johannesburg

Ellis Park Stadium with Hillbrow and Ponte Towers

As my wife and I approach Ellis Park (sorry, Emirates Airlines Park) on Saturday afternoon, a hatchback speeds towards us, away from the stadium. The car is full of rugby supporters in Lions red and Blue Bulls blue and as it approaches it slows down, the windows roll down, and a stream of throat-gargling Afrikaans pours out.  

 

I look back blankly and they try again in English.

 

“Where is the police station around here?”

 

There’s a sense of controlled urgency rather than panic, although one of the Bulls fans in the back is bent forward unnaturally.

 

“Sorry mate, we aren’t from around here”.

 

Silence. It’s their turn to stare back blankly. I feel the need to explain myself.

 

“We’re Aussies”.

 

The blank looks turn slowly to bewildered smiles – it seems finding a pair of foreigners wandering around Johannesburg’s inner suburbs is more interesting than whatever it is that needs police attention. Even the possibly injured Bulls fan turns our way.

 

“So…yeah… Sorry about that”.

 

They suddenly remember themselves and drive off quickly, glancing back at us in mild disbelief.

 

*****

Ellis Park, northwest corner

 

I don’t like to start a story about going to a game at Ellis Park by talking about security and crime in South Africa. It’s a cliché, for one, but mostly because I’m not qualified to talk about it. It does however cross your mind, especially as you walk off in the direction that a carload of rugby fans have just sped away from in search of police help, and after having read TripAdviser reviews with titles such as “Robbed at Gunpoint”. Fortunately we arrived at the stadium without further incident.

 

We’d planned well ahead for the game (except that we had no idea that the cool thing to do before a Lions game is to tailgate in the KFC carpark) and got ourselves the most expensive seats available at 130 rand. That’s around $14 Australian, and got us sitting right beside the players tunnel. Most seats were going for 40 rand, or just over four bucks. So while we in Australia wring our hands at the financial state of our rugby and assume that the superior crowds in South Africa mean that they're rolling in cash, spare a thought for how much financial power they’re actually able to translate their crowds into. A couple of beers at the game is less than $5, and I could have saved the $70 I spent on a Lions Currie Cup jersey and just bought a knock off for $8 outside the ground. No wonder they lose so many players to Europe and Japan. Anyway, I digress.

 

Ellis Park, like Newlands and I presume many South African rugby grounds, is an imposing stadium with steep sides, with ends that are almost vertical. When the game gets going the crowd of around 28,000 people feels like more than 40,000 people. Being a Brumbies fan used to watching rugby at Bruce Stadium, where 14,000 people feels like 8,000 it’s extremely impressive.  

 

The game is tight and hard fought, and has the feeling of a derby (it’s the only “real” derby in Super Rugby) with tight defense and high intensity. The Bulls fans have come out in numbers and when the crowd roars it’s not immediately evident what team has just won an advantage. Around us coarse-voiced barrages of Afrikaans are directed towards the field. I often wondered why visiting teams were apparently so intimidated by South African crowd abuse, when much of it was presumably in Afrikaans, but even with the translation you could pick up the aggression.

 



Players running out before the match

Mid-way through the second half and with the game still tight, a guy in front turned around and maneuvered his throat and phlegm into a sentence of Afrikaans. I once had a guy in Pretoria tell me that Afrikaans is not a language it’s a throat disease, and that’s pretty close to what it sounds like. He repeated himself in English.

 

“I’m sorry about our language” he said, presumably referring to his swearing rather than Afrikaans in general.

 

“Don’t worry, we don’t understand any of it anyway”.

 

As before, I felt the need to explain myself.

 

“We’re from Australia”

 

And once again, happily bewildered faces turned to us, and having turned up in Lions colours we became best friends quickly. They offered sincere congratulations on Australia’s cricket world cup win and we cheered on the last twenty minutes of the game.

 

With only a few minutes left and the game tied 15-all, the Bulls fly-half Jacques-Louis Potgieter cleared the ball downfield, only for a Lions player to make contact after the kick. After the TMO was brought in a penalty was given downfield. Whether or not the penalty was fair I don’t know, but the crowd became incensed by the obvious dramatics of Potgieter, whose apparent agony disappeared as soon as the referee blew his whistle. He then kicked the Bulls in front, having made a full and unsurprising recovery.

 

With a minute and a half left it looked like curtains for the Lions. The rain from earlier in the game had returned, and having scored only six tries in nearly 640 minutes of rugby this season the last seconds of the game came as a bit of a surprise. The Lions quickly kicked off, regathered the ball and having turned down a chance to tie the game with a penalty scored a try through the reserve hooker, Armand van der Merwe. What a great South African name. For some reason he’s also called Akker van der Merwe. Oh Afrikaaners, don't ever change. I should also mention his nickname is "The Angry Warthog".

 

Naturally the red portion of the stadium erupted with hugs all round as we celebrated with the real Lions fans their win over their northern rivals.

 



My new best friend, wearing a garbage bag

We hadn’t organized any transport home from the game (my fault) so we headed out looking for a taxi. Not immediately finding one we asked a policeman which direction would give us the best chance, and he told us to wait on the street corner as he’d get someone to take us. Assuming one of his mates was a cab driver we waited in the rain, until eventually a police car turned up with two young cops.

 

We finished our night riding across town in the back of the squad car, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

 

Match days in Johannesburg, it seems, are a lot different to match days in Canberra.