South Africa comes out tops
BY JOHN ALEXANDER
GENEROUS HART: Fanatical Marlborough football supporter Kevin Hart gives his vuvuzela another blow for the camera back home in Blenheim this week.
Relevant offers
Kevin Hart is arguably Marlborough's most well-travelled football supporter but the popular Blenheim postie reckons the recent World Cup in South Africa topped all his previous experiences of watching New Zealand sports teams compete around the globe.
He had previously been to three Confederations Cups, two World Cups and numerous other venues and tournaments which all began in the 1980s when he followed the Black Caps cricket team and the All Blacks to Australia.
While football was the main focus of his most recent trip to South Africa, a highlight of his travels came off-field in a place he has come to love, Soweto, where mainly underprivileged members of the black population live.
Harto, as he's known to most, had previously stayed in Soweto during last year's Confederations Cup event.
This time he stayed at a modest backpackers in the city of 1.3 million near Johannesburg, for three weeks and he took over with him from New Zealand a load of good-quality, second-hand football boots to give out to the kids.
Thanks to the generosity of Mitchell Sports in Blenheim and various friends and acquaintances, Hart gathered up the maximum allowable weight of 23 kilograms of boots and he said the kids were overwhelmed when he delivered them.
"I gave them out to a local team in Soweto. The team shared them around, then took them off after a game and gave them out to the next teams playing. Every kid plays football there. They are fanatical about it. They play the game anywhere using whatever they can for a ball, sometimes rolled up sellotaped paper, oranges, flat footballs. They play on rough fields that you'd be lucky to graze animals on.
"It was like dropping off a United Nations food parcel when I tipped the boots out. They swarmed all over them. They loved it."
Hart said he found the people of Soweto quite amazing.
"Very friendly. Everyone in Soweto and South Africa that I met wanted to know if we were safe and thanking us for coming to South Africa.
"A top experience for me and I'd like to go back to South Africa, Soweto in particular and coach or just visit."
The Blenheim Valley Masters goalie said he also enjoyed a game of football with some fellow backpackers against a local team of young black players.
He said he had learnt a valuable lesson about life since going to Soweto.
"It is a very poor area but I've learnt that the less people have, the more they give in other ways."
The All Whites' onfield achievements in being the only unbeaten team far exceeded what Hart thought they would achieve pre World Cup.
He said the team more than held their own, especially in defence and he rated skipper Ryan Nelsen as one the best New Zealand players in any code he has seen.
What's next for the travelling postie: "I'll play football tomorrow for the Masters and I'll be over watching the Phoenix but I'll be paying my credit card off first."
- The Marlborough Express
