[Yellow Fever and Liverpool Football Club Wellington are celebrating ten years of the Phoenix by asking people to rank their top ten Phoenix players to raise awareness for the Wellington City Mission’s ten most needed items list. I thought it would be fun to ask Cordwainer Bull to give us […]
[Written in response to this anonymous post on Australian site ‘The Roar’.] By Patrick Barnes After a year of constant criticism from the FFA of everything the Phoenix were doing, I believe 2016-17 will be a bounce back season. In many ways the Phoenix mirror a more New Zealand community, more […]
Joey Barton’s scathing assessment of the footballer biography production line, “England did nothing in that World Cup, so why were they bringing books out? ‘We got beat in the quarter-finals. I played like shit. Here’s my book.’ Who wants to read that?” may probably be the most accurate thing he’s ever […]
George Goutzioulis got around a bit. As an Aussie with a Greek surname, he naturally sprang out of the Hellenic hotbed of football that is South Melbourne F.C. Representing South, he won the NSL in 1998 and 1999 under the management of future Socceroo’s coach Ange Postecoglou. He featured in […]
I was four when ninety six football supporters left their houses for a semi-final and didn’t return home again. I wasn’t yet a supporter, the game hadn’t sunk itself into me at that point. But even as I grew up, blinking in the light of the Premier League’s blinding self-promotion, […]
“You don’t understand. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let’s face it.” – Marlon Brando, On The Waterfront, 1954
Singling out New Zealand Football as an incompetent organisation seems to be everybody’s favourite sport at the moment but, in the finest traditions of contrary bastards everywhere, I’m not playing. The comedy of errors presided over by our national governing body recently may not exactly be helping their cause but […]
So. I’m an Auckland City FC supporter. I live within bus, bike or car distance of Kiwitea, they’re my team, I watch them play every game I can. I suppose I’m an adopted JAFA, although the term ‘Aucklander’ is about as useful as ‘Wellingtonian’ when you’re there. For the record, […]
The FFA aren’t interested in the football played in the A League. What they are interested in is numbers. Numbers of people through the gate, the profit/loss ratio of clubs and the amount they have to pay to keep those clubs going. Their ultimate aim is to have self-sufficient clubs […]
Emigration brings a particular and very rare opportunity for the émigré, the chance to pick a team. When you’re young, you tend to be handed your team by your birthplace, or the team your parents supported. If you’re unlucky, you have to choose a side hurriedly when asked by another […]