Chris Rattue: Security and smoky stadium bit players in phoney war

All Whites coaching team Brian Turner (left), Clint Gosling and Kenny McMillan (right) view the smoke-filled training ground. Photo / Brett Phibbs

Waiting has become the hard part.

The World Cup can't start soon enough.

The mighty tournament is dragging itself to the Saturday morning starting line, with announcements on teams arriving in South Africa and reports of friendly fixtures interspersed by mere flecks of real news, the disappointing number of star players ruled out of the tournament by injuries.

Let the real soccer begin, because we've had more than our fill of the phoney war.

Tonight's match against Chile has been completely downgraded by All Whites coach Ricki Herbert, who has claimed no interest whatsoever in the score or whether Chile will be in top gear or not.

What was initially paraded as a high-class finale to a solid European build-up has almost been portrayed as a nuisance by Herbert, who said he would prefer the game was played in a local park than the stadium at Nelspruit.

Throw down a few tracksuit tops for goalposts and we'll have a kick-about, has almost been his cry.

Maybe this is a damage limitation backstop in case a very good Chilean team runs amok.

All Whites wing-back Leo Bertos was taking the game a little more seriously, when questioned after a bizarre night in which a training session was affected by dense smoke from domestic fires.

"We're still not the finished product, there's a little bit to work on and just enough time to do it," he said after the team's first training run at Sinaba Stadium in Daveytown, a half- hour drive from their base near Johannesburg.

But Bertos added: "We're just looking to start the tournament."

And so say all of us.

The stars so far, for my money, have been the local people, and the colourful mysteriousness of South Africa.

We have only been here a few days and have so far adhered to the warning not to venture out alone and away from the tracks linking hotels and training venues. The dire warnings concerning personal safety in a crime-ridden place such as Johannesburg do the job.

It is hard to reconcile the difference between the people you meet, and the world that you are told is out there.

High walls topped with electric fences tell the story. Our hotel, where the overflow of people associated with the All Whites are staying, is protected in this way, with guards, although fairly casual guards at the two gates.

There is a shopping centre an innocuous walk away, yet you are not supposed to travel these few minutes alone, and definitely not at night.

You look around wondering where the danger is supposed to come from.

What you do find at hotel reception desks, around the compound and in cafes, are sincere and helpful people, who move at their own pace no matter your own sense of urgency.

In a place with such a defined and outrageous racial history, you also feel obliged to report that almost all of the people you meet are from the black community.

On the way to Sinaba Stadium for the first time, our driver stopped to ask three policeman the way. Suddenly we had a completely unnecessary escort, with lights flashing and siren sounding, right to the stadium gates. This little convoy was led at neither an orderly pace, nor in a straight line.

This was not the only reason for making this a ride to remember.

Intersection enterprise is rife. That man approaching your car may not want to wash the windscreen, but he will want to sell you cigarettes, a bag of potatoes or sunglasses.

Throughout the training session, the multiple blasts of trumpet-like vuvuzelas pierced the stadium.

The mystery of where these sounds came from was answered as we departed. Hundreds of fans had kept a vigil outside a training session they could not even see, and cheered both team and others as they left.

"Do you think South Africa is ready for the World Cup?" a waiter asked earlier in the day.

Well, no, on certain levels like acceptable safety, probably not.

But where else would you find that home fires can interrupt a World Cup training session, and then discover hordes of people braving the cold to enthusiastically cheer strangers into the night.