Katgeveg!

I visited Bloemfontein for the second time in my life this week which happened to coincide with the annual curry cup final between the Freestate Cheetahs and the Gauteng Lions. For those of you who don't know, Bloemfontein along with Pretoria are supposed to be the cities that embodied apartheid above all others in South Africa's dark years. The locals are supposed to be a tough crowd, Afrikaans speaking and so passionate about their rugby team, the Cheetahs, that any suggestion that another team could beat them is supposed to be followed by an ass whippin' of note.

Orange people where everywhere. Orange flags were flying from the cars, shops were draped in orange, joggers wore orange socks and some loyal fellow had even airbrushed an orange Cheetah onto his restored 1960's Cadillac! 'Looks like the rumours about ass whompings might be true' I thought, 'these guys are nuts!'. Biltong was sold out and news arrived that the world cup winning Springboks would be in town for the final, hosted in Bloemfontein for a lap of honour. To call it fever pitch is to equate hurricane Katrina to a dust devil puffing harmlessly through a Fouriesberg mielie field. The local newspapers had dubbed the final as a 'Katgeveg' (cat fight!), which I thought was a pretty smart headline considering the Cheetahs were up against the Lions. The town was alive with crazed rugby fans and they were all in orange.

I was therefore slightly horrified when my business partner Allan randomly asked the biggest guy we had seen in Bloem if he was a Lions supporter and wanted to buy a red T-shirt. The guy's smiling retort was 'net om my gat te vee' (only to wipe my ass with) but all in good humour and actually wished Allan luck for the game. Now Allan could care less about who won the game but his amusement was peaked by stirring up the locals, presumably just to see if he could, so he tried harder. 'The lions are going bite those wimpy Cheetahs in half on Saturday with their massive teeth and then spit them out...ggggtoo', he fired at the next huge guy walking past...'only if you can catch us, you fat cats', the smiling orange fellow winked back.

Not getting much joy from the local huge white Afrikaans rugby fans, he found a tiny black guy in an orange T-shirt and said 'you are going to be sad on Sunday'. 'Why', said the confused stranger? 'Because the Cheetahs are going to be making a mew, mew and lions are going to be tuning GRRR, GRRR' he prodded. The little black guy stopped, turned around walked up to Allan and stared him in the eyes. 'Are you a Lions man?', he asked. 'GRRRR', said Allan. The little guy pointed his finger in Allan's face and said, 'Aaaaiy, when your lions are dead tomorrow and my cheetahs are still running around them laughing, come back here amalungu' staring at Allan like he meant it. Finally some anger from a fan, Allan was encouraged, gave the guy a pat on his back and offered him a lions T-shirt. The guy looked at him and said, 'never, never, I am Cheetahs for life. Down with the lions, down', winked at me and walked off.

This went on for a while but when Allan started picking on school girls wearing orange, I guessed it was time to head for the B&B. The Lions got trampled, the Cheetahs took it 20-18 and we fled but not before adjusting my perceptions of Bloemfontein. The city has friendly people of all colours and they stand together for their team without the crazy savagery I was expecting. In fact the biggest savage in town happened to be a temporary Lion's supporter, out for a bit of sport...