Given that I’ve not posted on here for a good number of weeks (since late-September, in fact) you could be forgiven for thinking that I’ve packed up and headed for the beach for the summer.
In a way, that’s true. Although it’s a footballing ‘beach’, not a sandy one, one that’s played across our New Zealand summer and from one end of the country to the other.
My role with WaiBOP Football incorporates WaiBOP United, NZ’s newest ASB Premiership franchise. What started as a part time job – one that would fit around my business clients and, well, this blog – at the moment is anything but. It’s been an eye opener, a challenge and any other horrible cliché you’d care to use for the words busy and surprising and staggering. As I keep saying to Pete, the head coach, one of us will write a book in a few years and it’ll probably piss more people off than Alex Ferguson’s recent effort did.
Despite all that, we’re just over a week out from our first game. The team plays Canterbury at Rotorua International Stadium on November 10. It’s exciting, but I reckon I won’t get much sleep until then. That’s okay, but it leaves little time to crack on with this blog. For my best work this summer I’d recommend you head to the club’s website.
The irony is that being on the inside of a team operating at that level, particularly a start-up, is probably something worth writing about and is something people, I’m sure, would like to read. At this stage I’m just not sure if I can find the time to do it justice. So I’ll under promise by saying I won’t, but maybe I’ll be able to over deliver by jumping all over it. We’ll just have to wait and see.
Until then, whenever then may be, I hope you enjoy your summer. I will, as it will be filled with football, and it doesn’t really get any better than that.