Armed escort for All Whites squad

By TONY SMITH in Johannesburg - Stuff
Last updated 09:54 07/06/2010

The All Whites aren't often "interrogated'' behind a high wire fence with armed police at their side and a Swat-style team waiting for them on the tarmac.

Ryan Nelsen, Ricki Herbert and their crew were given a guns-drawn entrance as armed security personnel got down on bended knee and swept beady eyes around the place as they escorted the All Whites off their bus at Johannesburg Airport late yesterday.

Earlier, midfielders Jeremy Brockie and Aaron Clapham were flanked by flummoxed guards as they obliged three patient press corps from New Zealand.

"I'm not sure who's in jail, you or me,'' Brockie quipped to his Kiwi inquisitor.

Scores of people waited in the O R Tambo Airport arrivals hall to see World Cup teams arrive on African soil.

But players from Portugal, Holland, Ghana and New Zealand were directed instead to the cargo centre of the massive airfield and ushered into a makeshift marquee-style building in the style of a World War Two barracks.

The FIFA World Cup has security staff for, well, Africa and a fair few of them thronged the bus boarding bays.

They appeared to have every contingency covered - but the Kiwi can-do attitude had the security chiefs in a spin.

A high-level security pass was required by jaded, jetlagged journos in Jo'burg wanting to go inside the wire and attend the team welcome press event. But they proved scarcer then hen's teeth for unsuspecting New Zealand hacks and camera people. No-one could tell us how to get one.

We made it inside the barbed wire fence barricade and gave staff at the gate a Carteresque sidestep. But the big security chief blocked our path to door through which the All Whites were being welcomed onto African soil.

"You can't come in here without a special blue pass,'' the chief repeated several times before marching us back out the gate.

A photographer jumped on an abandoned parking ticket machine to snap shots of the Kiwis clambering aboard their bus from behind a six-foot high wire fence.

New Zealand Football media manager Jamie Scott came to the rescue by whisking Brockie and Clapham off the bus to talk to the Fairfax phalanx.

Police toting rifles closed in, in case the questioning got out of hand. But Brockie and Clapham made it safely back on board.

A crowd of several hundred chanting Portugese, who'd been patiently waiting for a glimpse of Cristiano Ronaldo and his cronies, had scarpered minutes before the New Zealand bus - emblazoned with a Kickin' It Kiwi Style legend - zoomed away into a sunny Johannesburg morning.

The advance party's arrival caught the airport media office unawares. They hadn't been expecting anyone till the afternoon flight.

But it was all laid on for the later arrivistes - coach Herbert, captain Nelsen and their Swat squadron


http://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/sport/football/3783777/Armed-escort-for-All-Whites-squad