Oliver Holt from one of the greatest football shows on earth
Here’s a funny thing about the African Cup of Nations.
There are no Europeans trying to tell the organisers what to do.
Nobody signing petitions to try to ban fans from blowing vuvuzelas.
Nobody telling the mamas who sell pap and fried chicken outside games they can’t come within five miles of the stadium.
Nobody telling supporters who earn £1 or £2 a day they have to pay £40 a pop for a ticket.
Nobody saying: “Our culture is better than your culture.” Nobody saying: “Why can’t you just be a little bit more like us?”
AFCON 2013 is way better for it, too. It’s like the World Cup in 2010 would have been before Fifa de-Africanised it.
It’s full of life, vigour and colour, the slow drum sway of Nigeria fans, the choreographed vuvuzela-moves of Burkina Faso fans, the delirious joy of the Ethiopians.
It is a celebration of football, of course, and the match between holders Zambia and minnows Ethiopia in Nelspruit on Monday was full of exquisite skill and great drama. But it is also a celebration of South Africa, a showcase for the legacy of hosting the World Cup.
Many things here remain the same. Grinding poverty still exists side by side with great wealth. The mansions of Sandton, with their high fences, razor wire and security warnings, still gaze over the chaos of the township of Alexandra.
There are concerns about housing, wages, corruption. A series of labour strikes has hit the country recently. The World Cup was never going to be a panacea.
But to visit now is to see a country that has grown considerably in confidence and in self-worth because of 2010. Sometimes legacy is like that. It is about a bigger picture. It is the same with Britain and the Olympics.
Sure, we may fret there aren’t enough table tennis tables in Tonbridge Wells or kids still aren’t getting enough PE in schools.
Or that funding for this sport or that sport has been cut. Or that the management of the Olympic Stadium has lapsed into farce.
Those things may all be true but the legacy of the Olympics is about simpler things than that. They made Britain feel good about itself again, basically.
They helped us realise we could look forward as well as back, reminded us we had much to be proud of as well as plenty to be ashamed about.
And it is the same in South Africa. Yes, it is a still a country beset by inequalities but things have changed.
“Before the World Cup,” its architect Danny Jordaan told me last week, “everywhere I went in the world, the first question people asked me was about crime.
“They wanted to know what would happen to them when they came to South Africa. They were scared. Now, no one asks me about crime.
“There was a change in the way South Africa was treated, the way it was viewed from New York and London. The World Cup repositioned our country. It helped social cohesion.
“The glow and warmth of what happened in 2010 is the treasure every South African carries.”
Jordaan is right about crime. The phobia over it has gone. At the World Cup, British journalists travelled with armed guards on their bus. That wouldn’t happen now.
He is right about cohesion, too. I can offer only anecdotal evidence but when I went to a trendy hotel bar in Sandton most of the clientele were black South Africans.
That movement towards the growth of a black middle class was happening without the World Cup. But the World Cup accelerated it.
Even downtown Johannesburg, which was close to a no-go area when I first came here 20 years ago, shows signs of regeneration.
Then there are the football stadia, superb facilities such as Soccer City in Johannesburg and the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit.
When Libya withdrew as hosts for Afcon because of its internal strife, South Africa was perfectly placed to step in. Jordaan mentioned more about legacy, too. He pointed to the Gautrain, the high-speed train that connects Johannesburg’s Tambo Airport with the city and with Pretoria and built for the World Cup.
And he mentioned countless other improvements to the transport infrastructure and the transformation of the airport into a state-of-the-art facility.
Latest tourist figures show visitor numbers from the UK are rising – more than 300,000 in the first nine months of last year alone.
And for anyone who has glimpsed the stunning beauty of the Kruger National Park, as many of those attending the matches in Nelspruit did, it is easy to see why.
One area, though, has remained impervious to the World Cup effect. Bafana Bafana, the national team, is threatening to be an embarrassment at Afcon 2013.
There is general dismay about the state of football in the country. Belatedly, Jordaan is trying to address that. Last week, he announced millions of pounds from a World Cup Legacy Fund would establish National Under-13 and Under-15 leagues.
More cash will go to train coaches and improve facilities. So in some areas, progress is quick. In others, it isn’t. One conclusion, though, is unavoidable.
The legacy of the 2010 World Cup is everywhere in South Africa.
It just depends whether you want to see it or not.
Best league in the world?
I watched the Chelsea-Arsenal game in a pizza place on the outskirts of Nelspruit on Sunday. Midway through the second half, some ANC guys who were fresh from the opening of a new local branch, walked in and said they wanted to watch the Ghana-DR Congo game instead.
I tried to explain to them that it is a truth universally acknowledged that the Premier League is the most popular form of football on the planet and must supersede all other competitions at all times, no matter where you are watching it.
It seemed not to work. We changed the channel.
I love a party with an atmosphere
I think of Liverpool’s Champions League semi-final against Chelsea at Anfield in 2005 as one of the best atmospheres I have ever witnessed at a football match.
Manchester United’s FA Cup semi-final replay against Liverpool at Maine Road in 1985 would be up there, too. And any time Stockport County ever played Crewe.
I can add another one to my list now. Ethiopia v Zambia at the Mbombela Stadium in Nelspruit on Monday evening was a bewitching place to be.
For the fervour of the 25,000 Ethiopian fans present, for the volume of the noise, the intensity of the emotion and for the random low-level pass by a military fighter jet, it was a magical experience.
What’s in a name?
I still think of it as Soccer City. Danny Jordaan called it the FNB Stadium last week. Journalists corrected him and told him he had to refer to it as The National Stadium for the duration of the African Cup of Nations. Stadium naming rights have a nasty habit of spoiling the simplest things.
A matter of life and death?
You want commitment to the cause, look no further than South Africa manager Gordon Igesund, whose touchline demeanour makes Sam Allardyce look like a Zen Buddhist in comparison.
“If I have to have a heart attack, I am prepared to have one for this team,” Igesund said. “Obviously, I hope I don’t die, but I am making an example.
One moment in time
Siphiwe Tshabalala scored South Africa’s opening goal of the 2010 World Cup but on Saturday he was substituted early in the second half of the game against Cape Verde Islands.
He has not done much in the interim, apparently, and it has been noted. His nickname?
”June 2010”.
