Day 34

Yesterday we were told we had this morning off and wouldn't be needed until 5 this evening. We weren't sure what to do, we couldn't go too far or do to much as we still needed to get back to Ruyterwacht. We looked down our to do list and 1 of the things we had on there was to visit the Cape Town stadium. They only do tours Tuesday to Saturday which is the same as our working week so we didn't think we would be able to cross that 1 off unless we went to a game. Fortunately we had this morning off and enough time to do it.

We decided we would chill out at Berghof for a bit this morning then go for a run and then go to the stadium on our way into work. Great idea. Our morning run went really well, we are improving daily, the heat and the fact half of the route is uphill is a challenge but a challenge we have accepted.

We took the short drive to the stadium and found the entrance, tickets were R90 for the both of us which is roughly £4.50. As we were on our way to work after we were in full Arsenal training kit, which of course was noticed by a group on the tour and we got talking with them. There were around 15 of us on the tour and it lasted around 45 minutes. We took a walk into the stadium, saw the press areas, the VIP areas, the boxes and pitch side, unfortunately no walk down the tunnel or into the changing rooms, apparently they were fitting a jacuzzi into the dressing rooms so we're off the tour, we finished the tour in the police rooms and in the holding cells. The tour guide told us tickets started at R40 and rose to around R250 for the VIP seats, which is roughly £2-£12 me and Harry are thinking about paying the R250 for box seats in a few weeks time. Anyone that's reading this that knows me knows that I did tours of the Emirates stadium and I know how difficult it is to take groups around but I must say ours is definitely bigger and better. The stadium was very nice though, just very plain, you'll see what I mean when you look at the photos.

We then went off to meet Joe, he had phoned earlier to say the session was off and instead we would be giving a talk to the coaches, chairman and board of Edgemead. Harry and myself aren't big public speakers, I can take you on a tour of the Emirates and give you numerous useless facts but this is all new to me. It was quite daunting sitting in front of 25 guys explaining who we were, what we're doing in Cape Town and our ideas of football coaching. These guys know their football, this is the biggest amateur club in the Western Cape, they have a former South African International as a coach, and here we are trying to talk to them about football. It was nice to be asked some proper questions, some of the groups we've done Q&As with haven't really tested us, it really made us think and we appreciated it. We haven't got an actual coaching session with their kids but after talking to various coaches we've volunteered to do a coaching course with their coaches. They have a lot of coaches with lots of experience but they are keen to learn, so we've offered to come back and put on coaching sessions for the the coaches to take part in, similar to the way we learnt. I'm really looking forward to doing that as it'll be something a bit different. We stayed around talking to lots of different people, they set out some food for us and offered us cool drinks which was a nice touch. We left at around 8:10 after exchanging email addresses, hopefully we'll be returning in earlier April.