soccer matches | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

The Germany versus England World Cup match deserved a very special venue, and my first choice was the Twankey Bar at the Taj Hotel. Luckily I called to check that it had a TV, only to be told that it would be closed due to a stocktake! My next choice was the Mount Nelson Hotel, and I felt I was stepping into the lions’ den (pardon the pun) in watching the match there. Luckily I had a fellow German supporter, and we were ecstatic with the 4-1 outcome, even if it should have been 4-2.

The Mount Nelson probably is the most English-style of all Cape Town’s 5-star hotels, and its security staff with their safari-style helmets salute as one drives in. A friendly front-of-house staff member took me through to the Lord Nelson Room, where the soccer matches can be viewed by the hotel’s guests. Nothing about the hotel exterior or inside gave one the feeling that the world’s largest sporting tournament was currently taking place in the city. The chairs and couches were set up in a U-shape in the room, and small side tables were set up with plates and serviettes, snacks like chips and nuts, a snack menu, and later even a child-like plate of sweets was put out on the tables. Having Rudi Liebenberg as the top chef at the hotel was not evident in what was served in the Lord Nelson Room.

The Lord Nelson Room has a Tudor design, with wood-clad walls and wooden beams on the ceiling. It looks old-fashioned, the beige couches interspersed with rose-fabric covered chairs, and the closed curtains gave it a dreary feel. I arrived an hour ahead of the match, and observed the barman set up his little bar (everything was brought in from another section of the hotel). I was not asked if I wanted to order at all, and had to ask for a cappuccino and some water. A misunderstanding was efficiently and charmingly sorted out by the hotel’s Guest Relations staff member Osnat Gropper.

The World Cup menu has a very small selection of food options: potato samoosas cost R40, Southern Fried Chicken R50, the Mount Nelson Club sandwich costs R85, spicy Thai style fish cakes cost R60, a Ground Beef Burger costs R90 (the Mount Nelson burger once was the most expensive in the city), “baby gem lettuce” (no idea what this could be) at R65, a snack platter for four costs R230 (but it is not specified what it consists of), and mushroom empanadas (the waiter had to find out that these were mushroom-filled pastry parcels). One can also order a snack plate of biltong, droe wors and spiced cashew nuts for R60. The empanadas were outstanding, four served piping hot, in a white bowl, without any attempt to make them look attractive, but were excellent value at R40, the best-tasting pub food on my World Cup journey to date.

The prices of the drinks are not printed on the bar menu, so the waiter had to write them down for me. One has no idea of what is available to order, as the bar seems to be hidden around a wall in the room. Amstel, Castle Lite, Castle, Hansa and Black Lable all cost R19, while Heineken and Peroni cost R22, prices which were on a par with the other pubs I have visited, a surprise, given one’s expectation that it would be far more expensive at the hotel.

For the Mount Nelson Hotel being a 5-star hotel, and having guests attending the TIME, Fortune, and CNN Global Forum possibly in the Lord Nelson Room watching the soccer, it seemed terribly amateurish – the waiter was desperate for business (the room never filled up completely), and begged guests to sit down, and saying that the sweets and snacks on the table were free; the lack of presentation of the food other than in a functional container; the complete lack of proactive service; lukewarm beer served, as it had not cooled down enough as it comes warm from somewhere else and was put on ice just before the match started. No Manager ever came into the Room to check on how things were going, except for the score! I definitely would not return for the World Cup viewing, but am tempted to try Chef Rudi’s special winter menu after the World Cup.

Mount Nelson Hotel, Orange Street, Tel 021 483-1000. www.mountnelson.co.za

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com

The first day of the last phase of ticket sales for the World Cup has resulted in chaos, with queues at sales points, one soccer fan dying of a heart attack in the queue, and the FNB system being off-line.

More than 500 000 World Cup match tickets are available for sale from today, which means that tickets could become available for matches previously designated as having been sold (in Cape Town, for example, all matches are supposed to have been sold out, but tickets for all matches now appear to be available).

It appears that the ticket availability comes from a number of different sources.

First, many sponsors bought blocks of tickets, as did the World Cup teams’ football associations, which they have not all been able to sell. The Cape Times quotes the Daily Mirror in reporting that 69 % of the more than 550 000 sponsors’ tickets have been returned, as they cannot find takers for them. Sponsors Adidas, Coca Cola, Hyundai, Sony, Emirates, Visa and twelve others had the right to buy blocks of tickets, to give away in promotions, or to staff and clients. Similarly 58 % of the 570 000 tickets allocated to fans of the 32 participating teams have been sold, and the balance has been returned.

MATCH, the FIFA hospitality agency, had been allocated 380 000 tickets to package into VIP hospitality packages, and could only manage to sell 1 000 of these! SAA would have been used to fly the VIP guests around the country, and cancelled 45 000 seats which MATCH had booked when the number of seats booked by MATCH kept changing. MATCH is blaming the poor sales record on the world recession, and on the distance of South Africa from the participating countries.

Second, greedy and opportunistic “speculators” bought tickets, with the aim of reselling them, at a profit one would assume, and have now discovered, even though it was clearly stipulated during the purchase process, that one cannot resell them, as the ID number of the ticket purchasers are printed on the tickets. This means that sellers of tickets cannot even give them away for free!

FIFA launches its last ticket sales drive today, when it opens sales outlets in major host cities, as well as some Shoprite Checkers stores (from 19 April), to encourage sales of the remaining tickets. The Cape Town outlet is in The Spearhead, at Hans Strydom Avenue, in the building in which Col’Cacchio is located, close to Investec. The FIFA retail sales outlets will be open from 9h00 – 18h00 for ticket purchases by South Africans, and from 18h00 – 22h00 for ticket purchases by international soccer fans. These centers will also accept tickets for resale, and will be the ticket collection center for tickets booked on the internet.

Tickets will also be for sale at branches of FNB.

FIFA’s Secretary General Jerome Valcke said in Soweto last week that the South African stadiums should be full. “We will work hard to get South Africans and international people to come to the stadiums” he said, reports Bizcommunity.com.

Of the 2,2 million tickets sold to date, South Africans have bought just under 1 million (42%) tickets, followed by the United States (about 120 000), the United Kingdom (68000), Germany (32 000), Australia (30 000) and Canada (16 000).

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com