Pienaar lands in Johannesburg, McCarthy returns from Disneyland. Which one's Mickey Mouse?

The two most recognisable faces of South African football nearly crossed paths at Heathrow Airport in London on Wednesday night – Steven Pienaar on his way to Johannesburg and going places, Benni McCarthy on his way home from Disneyland and going nowhere.

While Bafana Bafana captain Pienaar is looking forward to three Vodacom Cup games with Tottenham Hotspur, South Africa’s record goalscorer McCarthy is desperately seeking a club to extend his career.

At 33, Benni appears to be quite relaxed about his future. According to Ed Aarons, the British journalist who worked in South Africa, this is what his agent Rob Moore said about Benni’s quest for a future: "I spoke to Benni and he’s just got back from Disneyland with his family, but Benni just wants to take a bit of time to decide his next move.”

Cast out of West Ham after scoring precisely zero goals in 18 months of argument about his weight, Benni is apparently sought after in the United Arab Emirates and America’s MLS, where old professionals never die, they just play that way.

Alternatively, we hear Ajax’s Cape Town branch are keen on bringing McCarthy back to the mother city after a goal-happy 12-year career in Europe which took in Celta Vigo, Porto and Blackburn before the disastrous £2m move to the Hammers.

Hopefully he’s left Mickey Mouse behind and is currently working hard at pre-season training, though exactly where and when that happens remains open to question.

And Pienaar? He turned up at Oliver Tambo International yesterday full of beans, ready to take on Kaizer Chiefs in Polokwane on Saturday after admitting to being an Orlando Pirates fan when he grew up in nearby Westbury. Spurs play Pirates at Nelspruit’s Mbombela Stadium on Tuesday.

Pienaar is the new face of South African football. Presentable, hard-working, eager to please. With the Luca Modric-to-Chelsea row growing by the day, he will use the Vodacom Challenge as a perfect opportunity to prove his worth to boss Harry Redknapp, who signed him from Everton for a bargain £2m in January.

He twittered this week: “It’s always amazing to play back home. I can’t wait. I supported Pirates as a kid before I moved to Ajax Cape Town.”

Prior to that, Pienaar offered his views on the Rainbow Nation’s hosting of last year’s World Cup to FIFA, saying: “Many people, especially in Europe, thought that we couldn’t manage a World Cup in our country. At the end, we all proved them wrong.

“The world celebrated a fantastic World Cup on the African continent, with crazy supporters and the unforgettable sounds of the Vuvuzelas.

“The future will show us if we can keep up the spirit from the World Cup, but I am convinced that we can do it. I think a World Cup in my country was a fantastic opportunity for us and the African people to make a strong statement on ending discrimination.”

Yup, Pienaar isn’t afraid to be political. He added: “Growing up in South Africa, a country that for many years suffered under racial discrimination, I kept myself busy with football and tried not to think about apartheid around me. It was a tough time in South Africa and many innocent people suffered under apartheid in my home country, but we have to forget about the past and build on our future.

“Nelson Mandela is our ‘Father of the Nation,’ and he played a major role in trying to put an end to discrimination in South Africa and the world. Even when he was in jail, he never gave up fighting for freedom or for our rights. He showed us that we all have to fight for a better life, for freedom and for an end to discrimination in the world.

“Sport is the best thing to unite people. Nelson Mandela taught us how sports can change people’s minds and bring them together as a happy family. I remember the Rugby World Cup in our country when he brought our nation together. Sports can change people’s minds and prejudices not only in South Africa but around the whole world.”

Spot on Schillo. Perhaps it’s time big Benni tried to change people’s minds and prejudices.

Now read Ed Aaron's superb blog on McCarthy: http://edaarons.blogspot.com/2011/07/bennis-homecoming-fat-or-fiction.html

And finally, here it is in print: My record 150 not out for Chalfont St Peter Cricket Club

So here it is, the Bucks Advertiser today, August 5, 2010, with a deliriously blow-by-blow account of my record 150 not out for Chalfont St Peter last Sunday!

I know it's only blowing my own trumpet, but given I'd spent the previous three months covering the World Cup in South Africa, it wasn't a bad effort at 49.

And the day before I'd got a third-ball duck opening for neighbouring Chalfont St Giles in my first game of the season - snicked one to slip against Holyport!

Given the fact mighty Penn Street usual wallop us, it was a significant boost for absent captain Alexis Panayiotou and chairman Dan Webb - both having given birth in recent weeks. Well, their wives did.

As always, the Advertiser have done me proud. Spent a long time on the phone with Matt Lewis, their new sports reporter.

Some details Cally the Penn Street scorer also provided: 50 off 59 balls, 100 off 98 balls, 150 off 129. That means the second ton came off just 80 balls, not bad for an old bloke who can't see the scoreboard without shuffling the fielding positions!

The big partnerships: put on 40 with Matt Stannard (28), 88 with Adam Crossley (17), 60 with son Charlie (27) and a further 51 with Charles Gorton (24) in a total of 294-5.

But as I say in the piece, it's the youngsters who keep me going. If they weren't playing I wouldn't bother at this ripe old age. Leg spinner Tom Murphy, England's new Shane Warne aged just 14, took 4-14 off his four overs, Adam Pomarkenke took 3-13, Harry Tyler 2-26 and Jake Watson 1-23. And all of them are still at school. Incredible.

Penn Street were all out for 94, and nobody can remember a 200-run win on a Sunday at the club. So indulge me. My moment of glory after last year's National Christian Vets Cup FA Cup triumph for Goldhill Baptist Church.

There won't be many more moments like this!

Amazed by Amazon... two reviews of A GAME APART I thought you might like to read...

DAVID BRYSON, one of the top reviewers on Amazon, has put up this review of my first novel, A GAME APART. He gave it five stars – and touched on a lot of the areas you hope reviewers will when you set out on the publishing journey. Thanks David. There’s also a review from an M Nelson, which I’ve added below. Please give them both a read and if you’re interested, click through on www.nealcollins.co.uk or search for the book on Amazon... with Eugene Terreblanche’s death over the weekend it’s a fraught time for the World Cup. I hope my words offer some perspective for football fans planning to travel – or those who will simply watch from home. The background to current events in South Africa is far from simple. Years of discrimination and hatred have been put aside in the name of "peace and reconciliation"... bitter outbreaks are bound to occur. As I said yesterday, we can only pray the voices of sanity prevail. Is this what you would call a novel? At least some of the characters are fictional, although there is probably a strong basis in real life-stories even with these. How close to historical fact the details of the story are I don't know either, but I would guess pretty damn close. This book is more history than anything else. Although the plot line is hung around international football (in America-speak `soccer') don't look for anything here along the lines of Roy of the Rovers. Matches are described with an enthusiast's sense for detail and atmosphere, but one of the things that I like best about the narration is how even these sporting commentaries never lose contact with the basic political thread, the ghastly tale of apartheid in South Africa. I very much doubt that international sport can be separated from global politics. To those who pleaded for that the late James Cameron responded `Go on, just try.' Neal Collins has more sense, however much he loves football for itself he knows what was really important when it was a matter of football in pre-Mandela South Africa, and the games that he describes never become isolated episodes described just for the sake of talking about football. The fictional element of the plot is very well put together. The hero is of slightly uncertain racial origins, and he is made to grow and develop as he escapes his slag of a mother and his scrubber of an English girlfriend via his secondment to a team in South Africa. There he sees things that he was not meant to see, he finds a woman whom he deserves and who deserves him, but above all he saves his soul by his determination to expose the true filthy reality of the South African regime. This book is strong on atmosphere. It does not just describe the governmental orders and regulations, it takes us right into the heart of the communities affected by them and does not spare us the details of what the suffering was like. Almost more important, because more educative and illuminating, it gets to the heart also of the Afrikaner mentality. Neal Collins puts his finger on the inferiority complex, the chips on shoulders, the defensiveness that uses brutality as an outlet for a sense of insecurity, the contempt for truth, the glorification of ignorance and the fostering of the belief that it does not matter what you do it matters what flag you do it under. It was all so reminiscent of inter-wars Germany, and I think the author says so, perhaps through the mouth of his hero. One parallel that is not explicitly drawn, possibly because there was no need to spell it out, is how the grievances of the Boers, as of the Germans before them, were not imaginary. The Treaty of Versailles was the last word in smug triumphalist stupidity, and the treatment of the Boers by the British was not much better than the viciousness that the humiliated Boers in their turn dished out to who they could dish it out to. Worth remembering whenever we feel inclined to shake our heads in self-righteous piety. For once, the historian in the author is able to end on a note of not just hope but actual achievement. Whatever the shortcomings of the new South Africa, Mandela's vision and strategy look good by most relevant comparisons. I am not going to be able to attend the World Cup in South Africa, but I shall be following with interest the experiences and reports of those who can make it. Global sport is an increasingly important element in global politics, and this book is a very timely reminder of what happened at a time when South Africa could not have qualified for any such festival of the world's game, (although even in its darkest era rugby continued to sidle through the moral barriers and so would cricket have but for the foolishness of the South African government in the case of d'Oliveira.) We keep hearing pious sentiments about how the Holocaust must never be allowed to happen again, and I wonder in that case what those who express such unexceptionable opinions think happened in Rwanda, Cambodia and Bosnia. It would be ironic if sport can achieve what diplomacy can't, but if it can it should be encouraged to. I have no hesitation in giving this book 5 stars. Neal Collins is no great literary stylist, but his book scores heavily for the power with which he gets his message across, for the welcome absence of preachiness, and for the admirable sense of timing in publishing it. If I felt even a moment's doubt regarding the fifth star, it was dispelled instantly on finding that the author is a fellow Arsenal supporter.

Somebody called M Nelson added this, shorter review, which is equally satisfiying from my point of view: A story that instantly captures the irrepressible spirit of the Black nation in South Africa. Their generosity, sense of humour and love of the football game along with the traditions and superstitions of their pride culture is portrayed successfully. The immense atrocities and madness South African people were subjected to by the Apartheid regime is captured and the way the author has condensed some of the atrocities committed, shocks one successfully into realising the fight and tragedy that South Africa has been through to achieve the miraculous Rainbow Nation. The book is not all "doom and gloom" however as the sense of humour and the love of the game of football that is so prevalent in South Africa does successfully shine through. SA deserves to host the World Cup 2010! Both of these review can be found at http://www.amazon.com/Game-Apart-Story-Behind-Africa/dp/1449057489/ref=cm. For further info, have a look around www.nealcollins.co.uk... and for video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqck5JuZtuc

Sven on £22,000-a-day in the Ivory Coast. Average salary: £3 a day. But Drogba says it's a dream

SVEN GORAN ERIKSSON’S appointment to lead the Ivory Coast into the World Cup this summer is “a dream come true” according to Chelsea striker Didier Drogba. But it's a costly dream.

Though former England and Mexico boss Eriksson, 62, could earn £22,000 a day plus unlimited expenses for his three months in charge, Drogba believes: “Sven has come at the right time. There is no doubt he will succeed. I have every belief in his ability. He knows the game. “

Yet it was Drogba, banned for two matches today over his antics when Chelsea were knocked out of the Champions League a fortnight ago, who called for ex-boss Guus Hiddink to be appointed when Vahid Halihodzic left after Ivorians qualified for the finals in South Africa.

There is widespread outrage over Eriksson’s typically vast remuneration. In a nation where the average salary amounts to a mere £3 a day, the Swede – last in charge at lowly Notts County in England's League Two – has been given a flat in London, a team credit card, unlimited expenses and a salary of £270,000 plus a win bonus of £1.7m.

But to earn that bonus, Eriksson will have to negotiate a route past Brazil and Portugal, the teams that knocked his England side out in 2002 and 2006 at the quarter-final stage. North Korea also feature in a tough Group G. They will be based on the banks of the Vaal River, with qualifying matches in Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg and Nelspruit.

Drogba added: "For weeks we have been pondering going to the World Cup without a coach. Now I don't have to wake up every morning and think about the future of my team without a coach. We are going to South Africa to win big.

“This is not something I am saying alone. We can improve on our last World Cup in Germany. It has to be better this time around and I hope Sven provides us with that spirit and direction."

Ultimate success may not be a pipe-dream. The Ivorians are rated 22 in the world by FIFA. Drogba, Chelsea’s top scorer this season with 24 goals, will be backed by brothers Kolo Toure (Manchester City) and Yaya Toure (Barcelona), Arsenal’s Emmanuel Eboue and Chelsea team-mate Salomon Kalou in South Africa, where Sven will stay in luxury accommodation costing over £22,000.

Eriksson is no stranger to big pay packets. He racked up pay totalling £16million after stints with Man City, Mexico and Notts County since his stint with England.

The details of his bonus? On top of his basic £270,000 for three months, he will earn £180,000 bonus for qualification from Group G. He will get another £270,000 for reaching the quarter-finals and £360,000 for the semis. He will get £450,000 for reaching the final at Soccer City on July 11 and another £450,000 if they actually achieve global conquest.

And all this for a man who admits he does not speak a word of French, the official language of the Cote d'Ivoire.

See also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqck5JuZtuc

A small slideshow

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Have a look at this, latest edition of Soccer Week magazine in South Africa...

magazine.pdf