The transfer window is a curious time of year. A time to farewell much loved family members, welcome fresh blood and say good riddance to those we claim to have never liked to begin with. It is a time of excitement and expectation. Rumours, 90% of which turn out to […]
What is it that the Obama family are watching so intently here in the residence of the White House? Some international crisis unfolding? A session of the US Congress? The Superbowl? Would you believe me if I told you it’s a game of ‘sawccerr’? What about if I told you […]
Eastern Suburbs 0, Glenfield Rovers 5 Madills Farm, Auckland, July 17 2011 In light of the Women’s World Cup final being tomorrow morning New Zealand time, I thought it might be a good time (better late than never) to attend, I’m ashamed to admit, my first game of women’s football. […]
It’s strange how life works out sometimes. When the final whistle blew in Italy’s 1-1 draw with the USA in the group stage of the 2006 World Cup, 24 years since their last World Cup triumph, I turned to my brother and said “that’s it”. I didn’t mean the end […]
Waitakere City 1, Central United 0 Fred Taylor Park, Auckland, July 3 2011 Today I went along to a Chatham Cup round of 16 clash between Waitakere City FC and Central United. The Chatham Cup is New Zealand’s premier club knockout tournament. Unlike this country’s nationwide franchise based semi-professional summer league (the NZFC), […]
I haven’t written much for a while. It’s partly because I’ve been busy trying to overthrow the New Zealand government (at the ballot box of course), but it’s mostly because I have been grumpy. Grumpy with the completely bloody miserable football season we’ve just endured. It started with Italy’s dismal […]
Take a good look at this stadium. It’s called lo Stadio Domenico Francioni. It’s in Latina, Italy and one day Manchester United might well play there. In my little dreams. Lower league football is great. You can tell a lot about a place, its culture and its people by going […]
One evening a year or so back I was phoned by a Sky (pay) TV employee doing a telephone survey on the viewing habits of their New Zealand audience. I was asked if I could spare fifteen minutes to provide some feedback to assist them to improve their service. “Great”, […]
That was a bloody tough World Cup to live through as an Italokiwi. I wrote at the time of the draw that Italy and New Zealand finding themselves in the same group had left me feeling gutted. But I really had no idea how gut wrenching it would truly be. […]
When I was growing up in the Waikato we had certain values instilled in us from birth. We hated sissies. We hated daylight savings. We hated Auckland. When you watched sport, any sport, (but only sissies liked sports other than rugby, and we’ve covered what we thought of sissies) you […]