Instalment One - The first four days

“What day is it?” And “Where are we going tomorrow?” The two most common questions that have been asked so far. I couldn’t give you an answer to either right now. It’s all a blur.

I’ve just been made aware its day four of the tournament and we’ve been on the road 5ish days. That makes it Tuesday, and means we’re going to Hamilton tomorrow.

I’ll start from the beginning…

We left Auckland on Friday night around 5pm, after a bit of media-whoring with a photographer from the NZ Herald, and arrived in Auckland about 2am. On the way up we encountered some fudging terrifying fog. The lights and fog made for some scary scenes. Luckily the boys are great friends of mine and took the opportunity to scare the shit out of me, amplified by the strewn debris on the road through Georgetown Gordonton.

The opening match of the tournament was New Zealand v Ukraine. The 25,000 odd in attendance weren’t treated to the best of matches but the home side managed to walk away with a nil all draw. Ukraine started the match the strongest and our boys managed to hold on til half-time. I’m not sure what was said at the half but we came back and looked the better of the two sides. Towards the 90 minute mark we could definitely have had a winner but it wasn’t to be.

Hamilton was the next stop on the map, they served up a great ham bap. This has been the pick of the food options so far. Football wise, we were treated to two exciting Group C matches. Colombia v Qatar and Portugal v Senegal. The Colombian fans were out-standing in their support. They sang loudly during the national anthem (more than I can say for the NZ fans the day before) and continued the anthem after the FIFA musical version cut out. After that match, a few fans invaded the pitch to celebrate with their team. In what is possibly the only shout out I’ll ever make to Red Badge – they did a good job in handling the situation. The fans were asked (one or two required more than just a polite request) to get back over the fence into the crowd and sent on their merry way. Only one individual was led away by Police for resisting security. The Portugal v Senegal game didn’t quite have the same atmosphere but the Senegalese put up more of a fight than I expected them to. For the most part their keeper had a blinder and it was disappointing to see him concede that last goal.

Post-match dash to New Plymouth through one of the yuckiest stretches of road I’ve driven. The highlight of the drive was the dinner stop in Te Kuiti. Sounds a bit grim but we found a takeaway place open that wasn’t quite sure what it was. On the menu were roast meals, chicken and chips, milkshakes and bakery food. Bizarre. But also delicious and cheap. It’s been a day or so since then and no signs of food poisoning. Bonus.

Brazil v Nigeria and North Korea v Hungary were on for our viewing pleasure in New Plymouth. The first match was sensational. I don’t think the score line quite reflected the game. Given Dale’s close personal email relationship with the King of Nigeria (or his son) we were cheering for Nigeria. The crowd seemed to be backing North Korea in the second match. I was backing Hungary. Mostly due to the attractiveness of their players. Is it wrong to find them attractive given their ages? I’ll worry about morals later.

We left New Plymouth to head straight to Auckland. It’s timely to now introduce you to a game we like to play on the road. It’s called “What’s in the trailer?” It’s pretty self-explanatory. It involves guessing what is in the trailer ahead of us. It’s best played in the dark as it makes it much more exciting/intriguing. Anyway, two cars ahead of us was a metal grate trailer. You know the kind I mean, high sided grating. My first guess was firewood given the size of the items in the trailer and I made this call pretty early. Soon after, Dale guessed that it was a trailer full of carrots. That sounded totally implausible – who carries carrots in a trailer like that? The likelihood of losing some out the gaps is pretty high. The next passing lane gave the opportunity to have a closer inspection of the trailer. Guess what was in it….carrots. I’m not sure we can continue to play this game now. That one’ll be pretty hard to beat.

Tuesday saw us head for a wee jaunt to Whangarei to see Myanmar v Ukraine. We got to watch a game in the sunshine. The atmosphere was pretty fun largely due to the school groups in attendance and also the large pockets of Myanmar fans. Ukraine put in a much better performance than they did against our Kiwi lads and kept putting the ball in the back of the net in an exciting second half after a goal-less first period.

On the way back to Auckland the weather deteriorated. By the time we arrived in Albany there were thunderbolts, lightning and rain….a lot of rain. Kinda like being back in Wellington. Wearing a tutu in such condition is not advised. The crowd were pretty quiet apart from a few smatterings of “ALL WHITES clap-clap-clap” USA put four past the Junior All Whites – a rather disappointing result and doesn’t help our chances of making it out of the group. Bring on Myanmar.

I’m currently typing this as we travel. Heading to Hamilton for the next instalment.

In summary so far there’s been sleep, football and driving. That trend is set to continue over the coming days.

More soon (and some photos).

T