England vs Algeria - Clash of the minnows

I don't really know where to start with last nights game. Obviously my first World Cup game was a great personal moment but what followed definitely took the shine off it.

Having spent the day shooting England fans around Cape Town I arrived at Green Point Stadium 4 hours before kick off in what I thought was plenty of time. Wrong. I picked up my bib and pitch pass and was asked to choose a position from a map of the stadium. Choosing was surprisingly easy as of several hundred there was only two positions left. Fortunately they were both pretty good or I would have been forced to throw a major tantrum.

The press facilities at Green Point are pretty good and from speaking to guys who have been out in SA from the start they seem a lot more organised than the Northern stadia. The one downside being that Sepp Blatter is no Jamie Oliver and the FIFA food was pretty bloody awful. Watching Graham Taylor and Allie McCoist pick their way through the dry lifeless Lasagna was certainly more entertaining than watching them on TV.

Out on the pitch the atmosphere was pretty incredible. The Vuvuzelas I had been warned would be deafening at pitch level were pretty subdued which gave the England and Algerian fans the opportunity to ramp up the tension in the traditional way. It really reminded me of a European away leg which is no bad thing.

You can tell the following pic was taken before kick off as I'm still smiling!




I won't go into too much detail of the game itself except to say that it was a truly awful 90 mins that I really hoped I'd never see from England.

As a photographer the story of last night was Wayne Rooney on two fronts. Firstly his pretty awful performance and the body language that showed his frustration with it and secondly his outburst at the end of the game. Scanning the papers online today it was pretty much all that was used excepting the obvious pictures of the Princess gurning their way through the game.








So it's North Korea vs Portugal next and hopefully I'll get to see some real World Cup worthy football.