World Cup Tour Tales: Week 5 (Tokyo)

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JON CARDINELLI reflects on the gritty and colourful world of Shinjuku, how the World Cup has captured the imagination of a nation and the Japanese chapter of the Dylan Jack Fan Club.

‘You kept your promise,’ the old bartender said. He launched across the bar to give me a hug, which was no mean feat considering his diminutive stature as well as the size of the wooden slab between us.

Earlier that evening, a group of us had chanced upon this bar for a post-work, pre-dinner drink. We’d made the short walk from the Springbok team hotel – an opulent monolith reserved for people with more money than sense – into the bright, loud, arcade game world of Shinjuku.

Every street is lit with signs and lanterns advertising the food and various other products on sale. A cacophony rolls up and down the cobblestoned roads.

Locals plea with you to follow them back to their establishments, either for a feed or a massage. Big screens project the images of pop-punk stars screaming their lungs out, while an unseen PA system blasts muzak that reminds one of classic Nintendo games such as Super Mario Bros or anime series like Dragonball Z.

We spotted a sign for a bar and took the narrow staircase down to a dark basement. The younger of the two barmen engaged us immediately and it wasn’t long before he was asking us about our country and the correct way to pronounce ‘Hendrik Cronje’, as the veteran rugby scribe was among our party.

The elder barman emerged from the shadows when he heard us chatting about South Africa and rugby. He was fascinated by the fact that we hailed from a country so far away – and so different – from Japan.

He resolved to look after us, and it wasn’t long before he was whisking us away to a friend’s sushi restaurant down the road. He made us promise to return to the bar later, and was so thrilled when we did that he opened a bottle of what he called ‘Super Secret Japanese Whisky’.

Rugby is not the biggest sport in Japan, and yet the tournament has captured the imagination of the nation. Twelve hours after Japan’s big win over Scotland, a local on a train bound for Shinjuku asked me what I was doing in the country.

‘Ah,’ she said, after I told her. ‘We are playing you in the quarter-final next Sunday. Good luck.’

After witnessing the clamorous and often galvanising support for Japan at the Tokyo Stadium, I took her words as a warning.

I was surprised to see so many journalists at the first Springbok media conference of the week. Shortly after Rassie Erasmus and Beast Mtawarira took their seats at the top table, they exchanged a look that seemed to say, ‘This sh** just got real’.

The hype has escalated to the point where the local media will interview anybody with a South African passport. The journalists on tour – as well as one or two back home – have been chased for comment.

‘We want Dylan Jack!’ a mob of TV reporters chanted when I arrived at Tokyo Stadium on Friday evening to cover a South African training session. One reporter waved a printout of an article at me as I walked down to the pitch.

Earlier that day, a Japanese journalist had asked prop Isileli Nakajima how he felt about being selected for Jack’s Team of the Pool Stage. The local media was thrilled that so many Japan players had made that XV.

‘Do you really know Jack?’ the reporter pushed as we walked out on to the wet field. ‘We must have him!’

This group of reporters waited patiently for the South African scribes to complete their work in the media centre before interviewing us one by one. The whole scene reminded me of the one that followed the result at the Brighton Community Stadium four years ago.

Japan, from the people on the street to those in the media room, has embraced this World Cup wholeheartedly. One would expect the fans packed into Tokyo Stadium on Sunday to mark the Brave Blossoms’ first appearance in a World Cup playoff in a unique and unforgettable manner.

Regardless of the result, it’s going to be a game and an atmosphere for the ages.

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Jon Cardinelli