fred hatman

I’m here. In my beautiful country cocoon of Stanford. It’s a glorious sunny Cape winter’s day and I could tell you that many birds are lunging out their unique songs in the garden but that wouldn’t make it very much different from many South African gardens. What is perhaps different is, that from where I [...]

I don’t know about you but I’ve been flattened since our glorious World Cup came to an earth-shakingly climactic end on Sunday night. Pap. It feels like somebody I really loved has died. No exaggeration. I haven’t blogged in two days. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know what to write. I’m messed [...]

I woke up this morning to the biting cold of a Stanford winter’s day. Alone. And suffering a deep depression. I needed help. Group therapy sounded good. And I got it. From the vastly swollen ranks of the “SA-positive” people out there who are as hungover as me. On this day after the drunken month [...]

To me, it matters not a jot whether the man who is given global football’s golden statuette on Sunday is wearing orange or red. The real winner of this remarkable World Cup tournament is South Africa. And every South African. I am no politician. No economist. I’m not much of a social analyst. But my [...]

Because everything about this first African World Cup is beautifully brand-new, I want a Holland v Spain final on Sunday. Yes, that way we’ll be assured of a new winner of the world’s most desirable football trophy. Removing three-times winners Germany from the equation is just a bonus. But, first, Spain need to do the [...]

I trust that all of you good Hatpeople have observed Orange Tuesday. Or, given the price of a decent pocket of oranges these days, at least Naartjie Tuesday. To lend impetus to our friends from the Netherlands playing the skins off those cheating gits from Uruguay tonight, I ate three naartjies (a kind of small [...]

So you think I’m off my chuffing rocker? Er, that would be right. But hear me out. The clever money is on one of Brazil, Argentina, Germany or Spain throwing around the World Cup trophy at Soccer City on July 11. Fair dos. But my heart is on Ghana, the only African nation left in [...]

I’ve always been an “SA-positive” South African. Especially since 1994 and that small matter of us becoming a democracy. But this most stunningly beautiful of all World Cups has the bell at the top of my Positiv-o-meter clanging like Oprah Winfrey running wild and loose in the Durban Philharmonic Orchestra’s brass section. I want to [...]

I must confess. I could have sworn Frank Lampard’s shot which hit the German crossbar fell over the line and should have been awarded with “goal” status. But we can’t argue with this, can we?

Look. There are times when I feel like I’m groping in the dark on this blog. And this is definitely one of them. I’ve been linked on to the London Guardian’s fantastic World Cup fans’ network for this football fandango, the best thing that’s happened to South Africa since the invention of Marmite, and I’ve [...]