WORLD CUP BLOG: Tears of pride for England

Match Day England v USA:

I arrived at the stadium at 8am, having travelled from Johannesburg where I was the day before watching the opening match.  

This was it, the big match. I was so looking forward to this day.

I think I ran around and did everyone’s jobs today because I was just so excited that this day had finally arrived.  

When this whole journey for me began, I never thought for one second that I would get to work on England's opening match at the World Cup—a match the world was going to watch.

Apparently, it was being broadcast in more countries around the world than the opening ceremony.

Approximately 1,000 members of the world’s press would be arriving to cover this match.

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I signed in, at the volunteers’ centre where I collected my voucher for three drinks and I then took a five-minute walk to the media centre.  

My jobs for the day included manning the welcome desk and generally assisting the press with their enquiries, usually about car parking.

I then checked that the Media Tribune in the stadium was labelled correctly and that there were enough volunteers on each block there to assist the press find their seats and work stations.

Some of the stadium signage was not too clear so I made some amendments to that.

I had a meeting with my group of volunteers and we discussed how we were going to work most effectively together and who was going to do what job once the media started arriiving.  

As the press started arriving, it was a case of checking they had the relevant access passes and cameras had stickers on.

Before kick-off the team sheet arrived and had to be copied and distributed to every single member of the press in the stadium, the TV crews, the photographers and the VIPS! So, that is hectic as it literally has to be done within so many minutes!

Once that was done, I made my way into the stadium to take in the atmosphere and see the England crowd for myself.

I arrived just in time to see the teams walk out on the pitch and as I stood there looking around, I felt very proud to be there and to be a small cog in a big wheel of making the match happen.  

As the national anthem boomed out around the stadium, I watched the flag fly above the stand and all I could see was red-and-white flags and shirts filling the stadium. 

I stood there singing along with tears in my eyes feeling very overwhelmed and emotional at the whole occasion. I took a second to reflect on my journey to get there and made sure I enjoyed every minute.  

Once the match was under way it was case of making sure no oneas videoing the match who shouldn’t be, and the press are in the right places.

And as I’m team leader for a group of the volunteers I have to supervise them too!

At half time, another report was generated with match statistics, which also had to be copied and distributed to the various people, with the same happening again at full time.

I signed out at 11.45pm exhausted, hungry and thirsty, as all day I had not stopped for a drink or food!

I actually live two-and-a-half hours away from Rustenburg in Mafikeng but I had found a host family who were kind enough to put me up and offer me a room to stay in during the tournament.

I got to them half an hour later and they were all waiting up for me, there was a fire burning and waiting for me was a borewors (hotdog) and drink!  

A nice way to end the biggest match I am perhaps able to work on during the FIFA World Cup 2010 South Africa.

Tomorrow: Hayley’s hopes for a World Cup legacy—and how she helped ex-England manager Graham Taylor find his car.