That one time an Orlando Pirates jersey possibly saved my life

Hear me out.

Yes, that’s me. 2011. A hotel room in Cape Town.

I’ll need to give you some context.

People who know me know I avoid risk. I am the anti-YOLO. I steer clear of extreme sports. The riskiest investment I’ve ever made is in ETFs. I trust no one. I check the rain radar before I take the dog out. Before any trip, I write an itinerary that doubles as a disaster-mitigation plan.

I mention all this because, in hindsight, I genuinely have no idea how I ended up in a situation back in 2011 where an Orlando Pirates jersey possibly saved my wallet – or even my life.

It started when the Goethe-Institut invited me to Zimbabwe and South Africa. At the time, I was working full-time as a slam poet – which basically meant getting paid to hop around Germany, Austria and Switzerland reading into microphones. I published books, wrote ad copy for Berlin agencies, and sold merch for Casper. But most of the time, I was on the road.

The Goethe-Institut wanted a German poetry slammer who spoke fluent English and had some English-language material. Someone threw my name in the hat, and boom – I was invited to perform with local artists in Harare, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

It was a brilliant trip. My first time outside Europe. Harare was fantastic. Writers and stage performers are held in high regard in Zimbabwe – so much so that, back then, they were among the few people actually allowed to openly criticise the government. This was still during the Mugabe era.

For those unfamiliar: a poetry slam is an open mic where people read out texts and the audience votes their favourite. Doesn’t have to be poetry. Could be stories, funny or sad – whatever you fancy. I was a storyteller. I wrote (hopefully) funny short stories and read them off a piece of paper. Fairly successfully, too – across the German-speaking world. You didn’t get rich off it, but you racked up experience.

Though I’m a native Brit and fluent in English, I’d only ever written professionally in German. But that didn’t stop me accepting the invite. Two weeks before my flight, I banged out two, maybe three English texts. Some funny, some serious.

They went down surprisingly well. Especially when I dropped an F-bomb mid-set – the crowd lost it. Someone told me afterwards that no one does that on stage here. It was brand new to them. They loved it.

From Harare, we went on to South Africa. Johannesburg first. And here's the thing with Joburg: in the 2000s and early 2010s, it had a reputation as the most dangerous city in the world.

And, well, the organisers drilled into us – mostly into me, the only White on tour – don’t leave the accommodation alone. The place was behind a massive wall with barbed wire and cameras. Even the Goethe-Institut in Joburg looked more like a foreign embassy in Vienna.

Joburg is massive. Endless. The airport is miles outside the city, but you still feel like you’re driving for hours before you even get near the centre. A local colleague – a Black South African – took me around. We hopped into one of those white minibus taxis with plastic garden chairs in the back. We saw the city, the parks, ate ostrich steak. It was quite the tour.

Driving into Cape Town

That evening we performed at the Goethe-Institut. The next day, a colleague and I flew to Cape Town, where we were scheduled for a joint gig as part of the local literature fest.

At Joburg airport, I quickly bought an Orlando Pirates jersey. I didn’t really know the team. I just liked the name. Orlando Pirates sounded badass.

The day after the performance in Cape Town, I had a day off. I’d read online about a beach, about two hours from the city, where penguins lived. A little colony that had settled there in the 80s. A couple of penguins had turned into thousands.

I wanted to see that. So I grabbed my camera, threw on the Orlando Pirates jersey, and took the Southern Line from the main station – on my own. The hotel receptionist had recommended I go with a friend, but after four days of socialising I was craving solitude. Like I said, I’m usually a raging risk-avoider. But somehow, during that ten-hour flight from Berlin, some internal alarm switch must’ve been flipped off. Nothing inside me blared warning sirens.

On the train, I got talking to an Afrikaaner who’d once worked for a major London investment firm. He used to be wealthy. Retired 16 years ago with a handsome pension. Inflation’s gutted it since. Now he’s barely scraping by.

As we left Cape Town’s suburbs, the view turned stunning. The tracks ran right alongside the ocean, the water was this luminous blue-green. Then – two whales. No more than 50 metres away, massive creatures, maybe eight or nine metres long, swimming next to us. Real whales. Wild ones. I’d never seen any before. They stuck with us a bit before we turned a corner and they vanished. Nobody else in the carriage seemed to notice.

The towns along the way – including Simon’s Town – were so picturesque it almost hurt. Houses clinging to cliffs, tucked into hillsides. Fishing villages, mostly.

At the station I climbed into one of those white minibus taxis with yellow stripes like the ones in Joburg. The driver wanted 50 Rand. Then he saw my jersey and dropped it to 30.

And then: penguins. Hundreds of them! Wild, cheerful penguins. Boulder’s Beach is a national park with wooden walkways that let you stroll right through their habitat. You could almost touch them. Further south, near Cape Point, there’s a public beach where you can actually swim with them – but you need a car to get there. Still, this was magical enough. Some were sunbathing, heads tilted toward the sky. Others waddled around. Mothers groomed their babies. One brave guy tried to swim out but got slammed by a wave, flipped underwater and ended up right back where he started. A bit stunned. But he was a penguin, so he just turned to his mate and shoved him over. I liked him.

Later I had lunch. A Coke, some biltong – that spiced, air-dried beef that’s everywhere in SA – and I grabbed a souvenir from the gift shop.

When I wanted to head back, there were no taxis. I asked a group of tourists if they could give me a lift to Simon’s Town station. They were just about to leave. The bus clearly had space. They said no. A street vendor offered me a ride. I declined politely. I figured I could walk. It was maybe an hour. They’d advised against going on foot, let alone alone.

But I walked. On foot. And alone.

The sea breeze kept the heat tolerable. I passed people every now and then. Some stared suspiciously, wary, eyes scanning me. A few crossed to the my side of the road. But then they spotted the jersey and gave me the crossed-arms Pirates salute – with a “Baka Baka” for good measure.

A group of guys stopped me. They pointed out my kit. I got chatting with a bunch of school kids. We talked football. Of course they knew Arminia Bielefeld. Everyone here does – especially since they were relegated. Most people here bet on third-division football. That’s where the money is. One guy insulted me on the way to the station – Kaizer Chiefs fan, obviously – then burst out laughing and gave me a high five.

I made it back to the hotel in one piece. Tired but chuffed. I told the concierge about my little adventure.

She stared at me.

“Wait… you walked there? Alone? No one with you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m sorry, but… are you completely out of your mind?”

Cue a proper bollocking. She explained that a white guy walking outside the city centre alone was basically waving a big flag saying Rob me!. Not out of racism, but because of the stereotype: white tourist = rich. I’d been lucky not to be mugged. Or worse.

Then she looked me up and down again – and started laughing.

She told me she was convinced the jersey had saved me. The Orlando Pirates are from the Orlando township in Soweto. Back then, hardly any white person supported them. Let alone wore their shirt.

She reckons anyone who might’ve considered robbing me saw the jersey and paused. A white guy repping the Pirates? Nah. Leave him be.

Despite all of my risk aversion: I still don’t know if she was right. I don’t know if I was ever in real danger. On that walk back from the penguin beach to the station, I never felt unsafe. Would I do it again? Probably not. But back then in the moment? I didn’t even hesitate.

Thanks to Britpop, wearing a kit outside of a stadium is an acceptable fashion accessory. Still, some people are snobs. And whenever someone asks why I wear football shirts in my spare time, I tell them: let me tell you the story of how an Orlando Pirates jersey maybe, possibly, probably saved my life.

Or at the very least, my wallet.