By Iain Rogers POTCHEFSTROOM, South Africa (Reuters) - The tranquil university town of Potchefstroom normally resounds to the thwack of cricket bat on ball or the grunts of scrummaging rugby players. But with the Spanish World Cup squad descending on Friday on this town of around 130,000 people an hour's drive to the south-west of Johannesburg, the focus for the next few weeks will very much be on soccer. Fernando Torres, Cesc Fabregas and their team mates will be staying at the North West University's new sports village, training on a freshly-laid pitch surrounded by seven rugby fields and below the towering floodlights of the Senwes Park cricket stadium. Even the grass on the new training pitch was specially selected for the European champions, the tough kikuyu turf used for rugby fields replaced with more finely-textured ryegrass. The Spanish chose Potchefstroom, which is around 1,350 metres (4,430 feet) above sea level, partly as a place where the players can practice at altitude and partly because of the quality of the North West University facilities. Some 1,000 top athletes come here every year to use its High Performance Institute of Sport (HPI), and former patrons include British Olympians Linford Christie and Paula Radcliffe. Another was Kelly Holmes, who bought a house in Potchefstroom and lived there while training at the HPI in the build-up to her double-gold medal triumph at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. RED TAPE The new sports village where the 70-odd Spanish players, coaching staff, officials and two chefs will stay, opened in April and cost the university 45 million rand ($5.8 million), according to Annette Combrink, a former rector and head of the local World Cup organising committee. Jean Verster, an ex-middle distance runner for South Africa who now manages the HPI, said Spain's decision to choose Potchefstroom, or "Potch" as the town is known locally, had helped accelerate the planning and building process. "A lot of the red tape, such as rezoning and infrastructure issues, was rushed through," he told Reuters on Thursday. "What we are trying to do here is create a complete system that allows athletes to train at their best level and the World Cup has meant we have really increased the pace of developing and upgrading the facilities," he added. Although soccer, which is much more popular among black South Africans than whites, is not one of the university's main sports, it still has around 40 teams, who Verster said will benefit from the upgraded facilities. The floodlit training pitch cost 6 million rand there are new changing rooms. The university also has a partnership with the Mamelodi Sundowns, a Pretoria-based club who play in South Africa's top league, and their junior players who come to train here will be able to take advantage once the World Cup is over, Verster said. "Football will be the main winner in terms of the legacy the World Cup leaves behind," he said. RUNWAY EXTENSION Potchefstroom was previously an important base for the South African Defence Force (SADF) and the Spanish squad will be flying in and out of the town's military airport. The government of North West province has spent 26 million rand ($3.35 million) lengthening the runway to allow commercial use and air traffic controllers and emergency staff have been brought in especially for the tournament. "We had been talking about having a commercial airport here for a long time and nothing came of it but we were galvanised into action by the World Cup," Combrink told Reuters. Parts of the town are already decked out with Spanish flags and welcome messages in Castilian and when the players arrive they will be taken by coach to the sports village along a route lined with flag-waving children. A local newspaper, the Herald, published a special World Cup section on Thursday, including articles in Spanish, English and Afrikaans about the town's history and the Spanish team, who are one of the favourites to claim the trophy for the first time. "Feel at home, you have arrived in the home of sports," executive mayor Maphetle Maphetle wrote. When they reach their base after the overnight flight from Madrid via Johannesburg, the Spanish players may take inspiration from a quote from Scottish patriot William Wallace on a board across the car park from the main entrance: "All men die but not all men live." Their team coach, being carefully washed by their driver on Thursday, has the equally-rousing slogan on the side: "Ilusion es mi camino, victoria mi destino" or "Hope is my road, victory my destiny." (Editing by Ossian Shine and Nigel Hunt)
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