I took more than 7000 photos during 2013. Most of them were while I was at the football. Almost all were rubbish. But amongst all the dross I did manage to squeeze out a few decent shots. During my holiday down time I skimmed through my efforts and pulled out the best thirty. Why thirty? It’s a good round number and lets me put up three blog posts with ten photos in each. As any blogger will tell you, the more posts you can get...
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There wasn’t too much on offer around the Waikato Bay of Plenty region this weekend, with all the top local NRFL sides in Chatham Cup action up in Auckland (I’m not scheduled to head back up that way until next weekend). So I decided to trick my family into heading to the beach for the afternoon…with a stand-out ulterior motive – popping in ‘quickly’ for a look at Tauranga reserves versus Matamata...
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If you run a search in Google Images for ‘football+pantomime+villain’ you’ll find photos of Luis Suarez, Mario Ballotelli, Diego Maradona and even Robbie Savage, among others. If you added ‘+Tauranga’ to your search you should really come up with a photo of Dave Cook (you don’t, but that’s probably because there just aren’t too many images of the man on the web). Cookie is the man...
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The last time I watched a game of football at Wharepai Domain in Tauranga was in the mid-1990s. That day, the match was a Chatham Cup tie between two clubs who have since merged with other clubs – Tauranga City and Waikato United. So it was fitting my next visit, nearly 20 years later, to this venue was for a cup tie between a Tauranga-based side and a Hamilton-based side. Old Blues, current leaders of Waikato Bay of Plenty...
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My recent article covering the Matamata Swifts versus AFC Fury match has generated some decent feedback – by far the most I’ve had in the short time I’ve been running this site and writing about local football. Much of the feedback has been off the record so I can’t use it in an article. But it all just goes to increase my interest in AFC Fury and the journey they and their mentor, Dave Cook, are on. Love them...
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If Ellerslie AFC was a dude I’d buy him a beer. Maybe two. He’d be the kind of guy I’d like to hang out with. I’ve been to Michaels Ave a couple of times in recent years as part of a visiting team. Both times we were smashed, but the atmosphere in the clubrooms afterwards was warm, respectful and genuine. You don’t always get that. You can tell a lot about the culture of a club, and the people involved, by the vibe you get when you...
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I realise that no matter how hard I try to appear unbiased, anyone who knows of my association with Matamata Swifts will instantly wipe that away and zero straight in on my biased-ness. That goes double for any attempted constructive criticism of the match officials. So how should I call this one? Bugger it. I’ll just call it as I saw it. For me, this was actually a great afternoon out because I got to be a fan again, if only...
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It seems that everytime I visit Stembridge Road in Ngongotaha it’s raining. Wet, grey, miserable, cold. I’m guessing this isn’t a constant condition, so it must be me. Ngongotaha is a village on the edge of Rotorua. It’s just down the road from the Agrodome, which is ironic, given the state of the pitch their match against Matamata was played on. As the mower was clearly broken someone from Ngongie could,...
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Guest Post by Grant Stantiall I read a good article regarding electronic media and how it fits in with NZ football through a bloggers viewpoint. Enzo Giordani’s In The Back Of The Net website/blog is now one of my first reference points on NZ football. He mentions others that I also look at, and these sites are rapidly pushing mainstream media coverage off my radar. Take for example todays Sunday Star-Times football article by...
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I had every intention of spending my day out at Links Ave, Mt Maunganui, wandering around the ground, watching all the WaiBOP Federation’s Pre-Season Cup finals matches and then producing what would be my first impartial match report in years. Unfortunately, Matamata Swifts were playing and I discovered it’s still tough to be completely unbiased on a day when they’re playing. Enlightening. Anyway, as for what was on...
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