This sums up the past month very nicely. The author, Neal Collins, is  an English sports writer who spent the early part of his career working in South Africa for the Rand Daily Mail and other newspapers after earning a journalism degree at Rhodes University.

Bearak was writing about the crime wave that wasn’t, about how hordes of barbaric South Africans somehow managed not to machete World Cup fans and their teams to death, how hundreds of thousands of visiting pockets were left unpicked, and how their owners were returning home miraculously unmugged, unhijacked and otherwise unmolested. Read the piece. It’s a delight.

Other than the line about South Africa’s criminal classes having proved themselves to be even more inept than the French team which Bafana Bafana put out of everyone’s misery so beautifully on June 22, of particular delight was the story of the Englishman and the cab driver, or at least the way it ended.

On June 11, it seems, Paul Clark left his computer bag on the floor of a taxi. In the bag with the computer was $2400 in cash. The cab driver, Tom Tsepe, had given Clark his card so Clark was able to call him. Tsepe found the bag and returned it, computer still inside but money gone. Clark accused Tsepe of having taken the cash and the cab driver was hauled before one of the special courts set up for the rapid processing of World Cup-related crime.

Clarke ultimately had to admit he had no idea who had taken the money; it could even have been one his own friends. So Tsepe was acquitted, but not before spending five hours in a cell, losing a day’s work and having to hire a lawyer, all of which set him back around $1000.

Then came the South African moment. Bearak was there to capture it. Accused and accuser ran into each other on the way from court. I don’t know about you, but I doubt I would have said anything, let alone anything printable, to the Englishman had I been in the cab driver’s shoes.

But Tsepe, as Bearak tells it, did have something to say. “My friend, I’m sorry you lost your money.”

There is one of false note in Bearak’s otherwise beautifully executed piece. He attributes Tsepe’s decency and ability to empathise with someone who has caused him no inconsiderable distress to his being on his best behaviour because of the World Cup. No. The taxi driver said what he said because that is the way South Africans are.

What will this World Cup leave for South Africa?

I have asked barmen and journalists and politicians such as the remarkable Helen Zille, premier of the Western Cape province. I have ended up feeling like those Monty Python characters who were so foolish as to question the benefits of the Roman Empire. The World Cup not only gave jobs and skills but hope to thousands of local people.

The tournament gave an absolute deadline to South Africa for the introduction and improvement of all kinds of infrastructure – not just sports grounds, but roads and bridges and airports and bus lanes that would otherwise not have been built and which will benefit the country for decades to come. Above all, the World Cup has given this country something intangible but priceless: a deep sense of pride that it has taken on something difficult and done it well.

When they look at themselves in the approving mirror of world opinion, South Africans of every race agree that the first African World Cup is a joyous success, and that success breeds confidence. The rand is rising. South Africans who left for Australia or Canada are starting to return to a country whose banking system largely escaped the recent crisis.

The sheer number of visitors – about half a million – will help to open the eyes of the world to South Africa and its potential for trade and investment; and get this – crime, the crime that has been supposed to be one of the drawbacks of living here, is down 90 per cent in central Cape Town, and there has not been a single serious incident of crime or violence in any of the fan parks.

Of course there will be disappointments, and no one could pretend that the World Cup will solve the economic or political problems of the country. But it offers a sense of unity and confidence to a place with a tragic past. It should help to build the taxpayer base that is so essential to narrowing the wealth gap.

It gives potential wealth creators at least some of the infrastructure they need. Fifa took an inspired decision to give the World Cup to South Africa, and South Africa has responded brilliantly.

And the Brand SA adorns the taxi’s hips.