Due to a major technical fault in my Financial Machinery I did not have a single monetary cent to resource my transportation to the FNB Stadium. Metrorail in it`s wisdom had not provided special trains from the East Rand or from anywhere else for that matter(except Prak Station). I did not know this for I had magically forgotten to check the email facility for any press releases regarding such matters.
Having lived in close vicinity to train stations for quite some time now I decided to use the method used by many of my African brothers and sisters to get to and from work everyday....the Mangobe ride. Simple really, you do not use the prescribed gates to get onto the train platform and by so doing you do not partake in the ticket buying ceremonies.
I planted myself on the platform at the almost perfect time as I only had to sit for 7 minutes before the gong sounded and a perfectly sounding woman announced that the train to Johannesburg would be arriving shortly. The only worry now was the dreaded white flag. A white flag meant that the journey would end at a law enforcement office somewhere or I would have to put my train cleaning skills to good use. The lack of Pirates or Chiefs regalia on this train also worried me. The Soweto is supposed to bring all of football mad train users out! This one clearly didn`t. A very noisy group jumped on the train a few stops after to bring down my worry-meter. In their midst were two gentlemen wearing Kaizer Chiefs tops. They clearly had not seen a Metrorail cashier too. No white flag.
At Park Station Orlando Pirates and Kaizer Chiefs tops were clearly more visible and they were all heading towards one platform, I duly followed with a great weight lifted. One part of this all important journey done. Down to the platforms I went. A large group of SAPS` finest and fattest occupied a few benches at the same platform. I was criminal at this point so I did my best not to look at them. This was not easy for they were holding a rather impressive array of take-away foods. I made myself look organised by a taking a few paces in all directions and looking at my cellphone and making the odd fake call.
The gong sounded and the announcement was made that our special train to the stadium was arriving imminently. A small group wearing PRASA bibs duly arrived and starting whispering and pointing...this was not good. The train pulled up and the cops got up from their seats to also get into the train. Panick! Two of the blue wearing gents situated themselves on the door. This was not going to end well. Those PRASA people gave each other final instructions and hoped onto the train as whistle went, how I wished it the kick off whistle and I was already seated inside the Calabash. When two of those wearing PRASA bibs starting a discussion with the cops in our section I had thoughts of all the lies I would tell them about what happened to my ticket. I made a few more fake calls and sent countless fake messages. Turned out nobody wanted to check my ticket.
I was one of the first to alight and therefore became one of the first to see the bevvy of ticket checkers that were stationed at the gates of Nasrec Station. I made half a U-turn, started to frantically press my cellphone as I thought of how I should have jumped off at one of the many stops the train made in the velds around the stadium. The obvious getaway was the toilet. As I made my way to make answer a non-existant call of nature I heard a man announce that the first train back to Park Station would be at 6pm. I would probably have to wait in the toilet until then...
Then divine intervention, one those nice people from PRASA told those pesky ticket checkers to let the people go! I didn`t quite catch this glorious announcement as I was `busy on the phone` pacing up and down.
One of the ticket checkers saw me going up and down the stairs with cell to ear and tried to catch my attention with very little success. When she did finally catch up to me I gave a detailed account of how my `wife and kid` had left me behind and was a bit lost as to how to get into the stadium. Of course the wife had carried the train tickets with her.. I was also trying to get hold of a colleague who had my accreditation. This last part was true. The colleague in question just happened to be unavailable on his cellphone. It was not going well. If I had heard the call to allow people to go out of the station without tickets I would have avoided all this but I didn`t. I made a real call this time to try and get the guy with my accreditation to come rescue me but a man on the other end welcomed me to voicemail yet again.
My journey to my first Soweto Derby after two years had seemingly come to end only meters away from the entrance.
The female ticket checker then took back upstairs and directed me out the gate. All that pacing for nothing!
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