Travelling around this vast country has meant many hours in a car or coach.

Yesterday my party of five left Rustenburg at 8.30am en route to Bloemfontein 600k south. Travelling in an Astra Coupe I was surprised at the leg room in the back. Moving south from Johannesburg the landscape transforms to a flat barren wilderness. As the South African winters are dry the land is the colour of a Rivita biscuit. The roads are very good, generally two lanes and very smooth. This allowed Matt our driver to trap along at 80mph plus.

Bloemfontein emerges from the wilderness and owing to England being in town the main shopping mall was packed full of red shirts. We managed to grab a quick beer and sandwich overlooking the lake and fountain. The sun was very strong with temps going up to a lovely 25C.

Going into the ground was problem free and I was very pleased with my ticket high in the main stand at £130.

Post match we clambered back in the car and headed the 400k back to our base in Johannesburg. Stopping for gas we found a Steers fast food outlet and I went for the King burger and fries which really hit the spot. Getting back on the freeway it was clear that most of the 40,000 crowd were heading in the same direction. This caused massive hold ups going through the toll booths. Six hours later we finally made our Johannesburg base crashing straight to bed.

I want to thank our driver Matt who was great all day.

In conclusion there were about 20,000 English fans in the stadium all suffering from a poor performance and defeat by Germany. I was very proud to be English on Sunday surrounded by well behaved and vocal support. Unfortunately Fabio and his well paid outfit have under performed in this world cup leaving the travelling fans broke and frustrated.