Chapter 53 - Chapter 53: Twenty Rows Up

"Excuse me!" I try to squeeze through the packed aisle, needing to get down to pitchside. "Excuse me!"

It's no use. It's too loud, there's too much celebrating. Too many people want to get as close to the front as they can, desperate for a proper look at the new champions of Africa. The rows have emptied into the walkways and locked me inside ninety thousand people in sky blue and white.

"Excuse me. I need to get down there." I push through and get shoved straight back.

Yoh.

I can barely see the pitch from where I'm standing, but I need to see him.

My seat is high up in the upper tier, which makes getting down to the grass before the crowd took over an impossible thing to have attempted. And even if I got there, there's stewarded fencing between the general stands and the pitch. Stranded in the middle of a mass of people, the confetti cannons go off along the touchline and startle me. It's then, stuck at a standstill twenty rows up, that I give in and accept I'm not going to make it down there for the celebration.

But I need to see him.

Slipping into the nearest row, I climb onto one of the tip-up seats to give myself a better view of the pitch.

Thulani pulls Zondi off the pile of players lying on the ground and hugs him, and my chest swells. Everything Zondi has wanted since he was a boy is landing in this one moment, and I could not possibly be more proud of him.