The Royal Marang Hotel: where England stayed and where Bafana Bafana are RIGHT NOW

Here it is, my World Cup 2010 video of the brand new Marang Hotel in Boshoek. England stayed there for the tournament in South Africa and Shakes Mashaba's Bafana Bafana are there this week as they prepare to fly out for their crucial AFCON 2015 qualifier against Congo at Pointe Noire.

Free the Famous Five! England were pants, they deserved to have their underwear knicked!

Thulane Fortunate Mongake, 26, Ernest Zimisile Klaas, 28, Basimane Levy Njielane, 34, Catherine Motsilanyane, 26, and Thapelo Joseph Senne, 21, my new World Cup heroes.

Bafana Bafana may have been squeezed out of the tournament early but these are the five brave South Africans from Phokeng, the less-than-plush township near Rustenburg, who rifled through the underwear of the England squad at the neighbouring more-than-plush Royal Marang hotel.

Thulane, Ernest, Basimane, Catherine and Thapelo were on the cleaning staff of the brand new hotel. While England were getting their knickers in a twist and plunging out of the World Cup in disgrace, our Famous Five chose to find a few souvenirs of England’s all-too-brief stay in South Africa.

Apparently they also took R485 in cash. That’s about £42. It wasn’t really money they were after. It was the glorious array of boxer shorts and briefs, designer labels with a value of R80,000 (about £7,800). And who can blame them? In this country, you’re lucky if you can afford a pair of stained y-fronts in many areas.

Apparently the England squad didn’t find out about the theft for four days. With the weight of a man refererring to the purloining of masterpieces from the National Gallery, North West Police Colonel Junior Metsi intoned solemnly: “They started on June 21 and stole things until June 25.”

England’s £100,000-a-week stars – playing the worst football we saw from any of the 32 nations between those dates - didn’t even miss their underwear for four days. The cleaners were arrested, the items were returned, the players were able to come home in their pants. But they couldn’t cover their arses.

The Famous Five were tried and condemned to three years in jail or a fine of R6,000 (£600). I am tempted to set up a “Free the Five” fund. Instantly.

My God, they risked everything rifling through the underwear of such jocks as John Terry and Ashley Cole. Don’t they know what these people are like? Why didn’t they steal their football boots? Or Robert ‘Phokeng’ Green’s gloves? That might have been for the greater good of the game. Okay, FIFA boss Sepp Blatter has apologised for Frank Lampard’s disallowed goal in the 4-1 defeat against Germany but it was hardly a closely contested game.

England flew home to absolutely no adoring fans. Coach Fabio Capello is fighting for his job. Wayne Rooney as gone from the new Pele to the old Pele. Green international career is over. Who is Gareth Barry? They were a disgrace. They deserved to lose their underwear. It’s not as if they can’t afford it. They should lose more than that. Over 30,000 England fans spent around £5,000 each coming out to see their pathetic efforts.

Then there’s the case of Simon Wright, the Sunday Mirror journalist arrested for hiding Pavlos Joseph, the England fan who appeared in the Green Point dressing room to provide an impromptu verdict on Fabio Capello’s men.

Heroes all. For highlighting the performance of our over-paid footballing gods. Pants, as the English expression goes.

Neal Collins is in South Africa to marvel at the South Americans, mourn England... and promote his first novel A GAME APART, the real story behind this World Cup. For more information see www.nealcollins.co.uk.

Exclusive: England's World Cup base is ready and waiting... with hardly any deadly snakes lurking!

ENGLAND’S World Cup base is ready and waiting for Fabio Capello’s Lions – a week before the 23-man squad is due to land in South Africa.

Despite headlines just three months ago in the British tabloids suggesting the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus was “a dump” and “a building site”, the Platinum-rich local tribe have produced, in less than two years, a high-altitude training camp fit for a king.

That’s King Leruo Tshekedi Molotlegi, the 36^th recorded monarch of the Bafokeng people. No African tribe offers a stronger lineage. The unmarried 41-year-old’s visionary “Grand Plan” does not stop with a five-star hotel, state-of-the-art-and-beyond gymnasium and the only FIFA Grade 1 rated training pitch in the country, it goes way beyond that, to a dream state which will come to fruition around 2035.

But for now, England and the Football Association should rejoice. They gambled on the tribe who fought to gain their own shares in the local platinum mines... and won. I last visited the site in January during the England cricket tour. When the British press turned up en-masse six weeks later, they slaughtered the place.

But I said exclusively in the Daily Express then that King Leruo would not let them down. I hate to say I told you so but, blimey, you’ve got to see this place to believe it.

Quite how England managed to get drawn in Group C, with their first game on June 12 played two miles down the road at the nearby Royal Bafokeng Stadium against the US (and they return there for their first knock-out game if they top the group on ), we shall never know.

But one thing is for certain. If England don’t win the World Cup after the clichéd 44 years of hurt, they won’t be able to blame the preparation.

Martin Bekker, the amiable Chief Executive of the Royal Marang hotel in the grounds of the campus, took me on a fascinating tour. As I arrived he sent me a jokey text saying: “I’ve cleared all the snakes personally”, a reference to yet anothing knocking story in The Sun this week, suggesting England were under threat from deadly serpents. As it happens, it’s winter. They’re hibernating. And they’re no threat anyway.

As we drove in, the staff were shouting “I feel it”, as World Cup fever spread among the works. Here are just some of the major points of interest:

1 The “typical five star” bedrooms are fitted with sensors which automatically turn on a night light when a player gets out of bed.

2 Televisions in the rooms are linked to a network allowing Fabio Capello to communicate with his players even while they are watching a re-run of Eastenders.

3 The gym offers facilities far beyond anything on offer elsewhere in Africa – including a rehabilitation pool with an underwater window for the physiotherapist to monitor his injured patient.

4 The two main training pitches boast exactly the same kikuyu-rye surface as the nearby Royal Bafokeng Stadium and earned a FIFA Grade A rating on May 5. It’s like playing on a carpet. I tried it. Much better than Wembley, and I’ve played on both.

5 At 1,300m the high-altitude, totally secure facility is already gaining the attention of foreign rugby, cricket, athletics and football teams eager to produce a squad of supermen at sea-level.

Look, I’m not pooh-poohing the other wonderful training bases I’ve had access to, but here England have – with shrewd judgement – ended up with the perfect World Cup hosts. Their base goes way beyond anything on offer elsewhere.

While the Germans languish at the luxury Velmore Estate 60 miles to the east in Erasmia, their training pitch looks like something from Hackney Marshes in mid-winter. They only started work on the field in January.

The Italians at Leriba Lodge in Centurion have to decamp to the nearby Southdown College to find a field to play on, while the Americans in nearby Irene Country Lodge have no obvious gym facilities and their training pitch is even further away.

The Dutch, Australians, New Zealanders and Brazilians all find themselves in non-purpose-built facilities with training pitches at local schools some miles away. Even the hosts, South Africa, have to share the Wits University grounds with the Dutch.

Only Argentina, based at Pretoria University’s High Performance Centre, can boast anything approaching the Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus. And Diego Maradona has had to have special toilets installed to ensure his comfort. The Spanish, at Potchefstroom University, are probably in third place with their training camp, used by South Africa’s cricketers.

Bekker, an old boy from the local St Stithians College public school in Johannesburg, has become an honorary member of the Bafokeng tribe. His brief history of the people is stunning. From their roots as a displaced Nguni clan 800 years ago, the current monarch’s ancestors have always been innovative standard bearers for the African folk.

The first indigenous people to own their own land, the cultivated German missionaries and dug diamonds from the Big Hole in Kimberley to create their early wealth. They befriended the legendary Oom Paul Kruger, first president of the Zuid Afrikaansche Republiek, who farmed the land England’s hotel now stands on.

And during the Apartheid years, they survived the noxious homeland system before badgering the big platinum mines for a share of the profits they deserved. Way back in 1989, when South Africa was in a state of emergency, plans for a massive football stadium were put in place... and sneered at by the white Government.

Bekker explains: “The Bafokeng are not your ordinary African tribe. We have a grand plan. Already the Leopards, Potchefstroom’s rugby team, have agreed to use our facility. And the Silver Stars football team have become the Platinum Stars and base themselves in Bafokeng.

“The kingdom covers 14,000 square kilometres, we have a Grand Plan covering education and development. The King gives every child in our 48 schools a free meal every day. And already we are seeing the benefits.

“We ask every one of our children to play one of five sports every day. Cricket, football, martial arts, athletics and netball. And our people dominated the recent national championships in cross-country and judo. Our local footballers are being recognised, we have the largest junior league in the country.

“This is all part of the Grand Plan. To be honest, we weren’t going to build the Sports Campus for another 30 years. But after the Confederations Cup was played here, we were approached by a European Football Association – I’ll leave you to guess which one – and we began work.

“It won’t end here. We have had specialist advice from around the world on where to go, what to do. We want to go all the way. And yes, we have European football teams eager to train here... and we have an Olympic plan too.”

Bekker has that glint in his eye. So too do the staff you come across, busily adding the final touches to a sportsman’s paradise.

There are no deadly snakes, no bloodbaths, no earthquakes, no muggings. The Royal Bafokeng Sports Campus could – should – provide the perfect launchpad for England’s World Cup bid.

Now it’s up to Fabio Capello and his Lions. They can ask no more from the Bafokeng people.

See the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAousno69rI and there's plenty more if you subscribe to my YouTube stream. Vuvuzelas plus the other camps, from the USA to New Zealand, Greece to Italy...

England's training camp? Don't panic! I could have told you that two months ago!

THE SUN call it "as dump", the Express "Shambles"... the Daily Mail and Mirror have had a go today too. All lambasting the state of England's World Cup training camp currently under construction at Phokeng, near Rustenburg in deepest, darkest South Africa.

Truth is of course, if they'd read my blog, they'd have know it's nothing of the kind. If any of them had seen http://www.nealcollins.co.uk/south-africa-world-cup/england-football-training-camp.html published before I sped off to the second cricket Test before Christmas, they'd have known the Royal Marang Hotel is only half finished.

Yes, the grass pitches are still being prepared, as are the five plastic pitches. But the complex, carefully hidden off the road to Boschhoek six kilometres from the Royal Bafokeng Stadium where England will play their opening Group C game against the USA on June 12, will be ready.

Funded by the Bafokeng tribe, who claim a slice of the platinum mine profits, this will be the finest high altitude training camp in the world. At 3,900ft above sea-level, the Australian and New Zealand rugby teams are already booked in to prepare for their Tri-Nations clashes. The All Blacks used to prepare at Swartkops High School, on a resurfaced rugby pitch some 300ft close to sea-level in Centurion, an hour away.

Now the Italians are consigned there, the USA will be training at the nearby Southdowns College, the Argentinians at Pretoria University's High Performance Centre, the Dutch at Wits University's Milpark.

All are inferior to England's base near Rustenburg. The FA have been on top of this one for months. Fabio Capello will visit there again tomorrow on his way to a coaching symposium at Sun City half an hour away.

As Mark Ferguson, head of security at the complex assured me: "We will be ready by May. Your Football Association officials fly in here all the time. You don't have to worry."

But, typically, the tabloids arrive, rustle up a couple of old pictures, and scream about "a dump" and "shambles".

It isn't. By the time the England squad arrive in early June, the Royal Bafokeng Sports Complex will be ready. Half of the five-star hotel opened in November, the other half will open in March. The pitches will be ready, the roads will be resurfaced. I've been saying this for two months. But do they listen?

How about the Germans? They're booked in to the Velmore Estate in Erasmia, nearer Centurion than Rustenburg. And their training pitch has only just been dug out... they'll be bringing the grass asap! The Australians are based at Kloofzicht, a lovely resort in Muldersdrift near Sandton, 20 miles away. But there isn't a decent football pitch within a half-hour drive.

So rest easy. As I told you two months ago, England have the best possible preparation for this World Cup. And an easy qualifying group against the Yanks, Slovenia and Algeria. It's winter, the weather will suit us, particularly for the games in Cape Town and Port Elizabeth. And if Fabio Capello's team win the group, they'll be playing their first knock-out match back in Rustenburg, just down the road from the training camp.

As far as Rustenburg goes, we do not need to panic. But if some clogger injures Wayne Rooney in the next three months, rush around screaming hysterically. That's where the key to our World Cup success, ending 44 years of hurt, really lies.