Brazil 3-1 Croatia Day 1 of the 2014 FIFA World Cup was a typical, almost clichéd, Waikato day for me. Yes, I watched the opening ceremony and game, while helping get the kids sorted for kindy and school. Yeah, I pretty much agree with what everyone has said about the ref, Brazil’s defending, Croatia’s bad luck, and the result being good for the tournament. Fred’s flop (new US basketball term making the crossover to...
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I was lucky enough to attend the last two FIFA World Cups and, while there, I wrote a series of articles for my local rag, the Matamata Chronicle. (Germany here and South Africa here, if you’re interested.) These articles became known as DB’s World Cup Diary. DB’s World Cup Diary won’t be back this year, at least not in it’s traditional form. As the World Cup in Brazil is about to kick off I’m sat...
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From time to time I’ll rummage through my recently liberated box of old Soccer Express issues and post a few morsels that will help us all remember how the game once was. This time I managed to dig out the ANZAC Day issue from 1990 with a headline that screams out “Reds Back In Europe”. This is somewhat apt, given the aforementioned reds (Liverpool) are back in the Champions League after a little while out of the...
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If you’re of a certain age you’ll remember that New Zealand once had a weekly football newspaper. Soccer Express it was called. One day recently I was sorting out all the crap in my garage and came across several boxes of old football mags. One rather large box was loaded with ancient issues of Shoot! which, unfortunately for them, didn’t maintain the sort of value that saved them from the skip. But a smaller box,...
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Just as everyone was giving it the big #myseason2014 last weekend I was at the beach. Saturday April 5 was the designated opening day of the 2014 winter season. I was in Auckland and had a plethora of games to choose from. The NRFL scheduling, in fact, was perfect as I could easily have taken in a Waikato club double header. Wanderers were at Glenfield Rovers (the place I kicked off my 2013 season) at 2.45pm then Melville United were...
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Crazy Cyclone Lusi was supposed to strike NZ this weekend, so I cancelled all my plans, which chiefly involved a couple of nights up at Cooks Beach on the Coromandel Peninsula, and stayed home. That meant I could wander down to the Matamata Domain five minutes before kick-off to check-out the latest instalment in Matamata Swifts’ re-birth as a senior club. But I was worried. This weekend the storm to end all storms was supposed...
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There are less than 100 days to go now until Brazil kicks off the 2014 World Cup. As a Spurs fan, a supporter of a team whose season is pretty much over, I can’t wait for the world’s best players to turn up in Rio, Sao Paulo, Manaus and all parts in between. I managed to make it to the last two World Cups, in Germany and South Africa, but I won’t be in Brazil. My wife and I are due to have our third kid in a couple...
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In the last 24 hours I’ve seen some of the worst individual mistakes made by professional defenders that you’ll ever see. The Sydney derby in the Hyundai A-League featured a cracking atmosphere with over 40,000 people in attendance. It also saw the visitors, Western Sydney Wanderers, pretty much dominate the hosts, Sydney FC, yet lose 3-1. Why? Three horrendous errors. A flappy keeper, a horribly under-hit back pass and a...
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Answer me this: how does a club that has won this country’s national league four years in a row – basically the Manchester United of our league – have virtually no fans? That question has been bugging me since I was at Fred Taylor Park earlier in the season with WaiBOP United and the ASB Premiership semi-final, a ‘Super City Derby’ no less, had me asking it again. There were less than 200 there for the...
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Now that WaiBOP United’s involvement in the ASB Premiership is at an end I’ve got a little more time on my hands so I reckon I should get the Bus back on the road and kick this blog back into life. As the Bus has been pretty well parked up for the longest time it’ll take a bit to get it back to roadworthiness. But after a thorough servicing, a warrant (which, I’m sure, will be passed with ease) and a quick zap...
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