Excerpts
Traveller's tales: Waitakere City
Waitakere City v Waikato United, Fred Taylor Park, March 21, 1993 Having victory snatched by a last second gem of a goal from Thomas Edge is not the great tragedy it would have been last year. Under the new structure this result was like losing a wooden leg in an accident. This match was just the foreplay to the main event months down the track, though after the match Waitakere captain Steve Cain is vain as a teapot with two spouts: “Anyone who comes to the home of the national champions and gets a draw should be very very happy,” he says. The last trip Napier City Rovers v Waikato United, Park Island, 28.4.1996 ... As the teams walk out onto the field Shane Gillies showers former Bull Che Bunce with the contents of a water bottle. It seems riotously funny at the time. But as chairman Paul Collins later points out: “If we get kicked out of the league it will be as much for that sort of nonsense as anything to do with criteria.” Gillies has earlier had another ping at Bunce. Before the match Bunce is wearing something akin to the type of brown garberdine suit farmers used to wear to town. Gillies, North Shore heart-throb and would-be gigilo to the women of Auckland, tells him: “Even unshaven and in a T-shirt and trackpants I look tidier than you.” Melville at their worst East Coast Bays v Melville United, Bays City Park, 17.4.2011 ...“Melville are so bad they should make them take the nets down,” offered one home team fan towards the end. But on this showing Melville would have only tangled them beyond future use... Aaron wins it Mangere United v Melville United, Mangere Centre Park, 31.5.2014 It was a bleak, unwelcoming day in suburban South Auckland, made even moreso by it being inorganic rubbish collection day down Robertson Rd, with busted sofas and crocked cupboards littering its length in the approach to Centre Park, making it look more like Mosul than Mangere. It was so cold the local hookers were charging $20 just to blow on your hands. And overnight vandals had dug about 40 holes in the No 1 pitch forcing the match onto a wind-battered No 2 ground. Melville avoid a Cup banana skin Ngongotaha v Melville United (Chatham Cup) Tamarihi Reserve 28.6.2014 ...Without wanting anyone to start playing ethereal flute music in the background, ever since legendary Maori explorer Ihenga met the spirit-beings Patu-paiarehe on Mt Ngongotaha and accepted a drink from a calabash, there’s been a suspicion the clocks sometimes run backwards at Stembridge Rd. Tamarihi Reserve has barely changed in three decades. You half-expected to see Mark IV Zephyrs (ask your Dad) in the carpark and Barry Crump swigging a bottle of Lion Brown at the bar. The one modern addition, a zig-zagging clubrooms disabled access ramp, finishes tantalisingly short of actually reaching ground level, begging a number of questions, especially for anyone in a wheelchair.... Dead club walking WaiBOP United v Wellington Phoenix Reserves, February 22 2016 When a football club is launched, invariably there is a garish fanfare of self-serving publicity, back-slapping, and an infectious degree of joie de vivre. By contrast, it’s a far more uncertain business when the time comes to take a club out the back and shoot it... ... Still, we are soon treated to a wonderful goal from Sean Morris, a spade-bearded US import previously best known for having the worst haircut in the league, which is quite a follicle achievement when you look at the likes of Waitakere’s Nathaniel Bowen and Canterbury’s Aaron Clapham. Melville Old Boys lick the plate clean Melville Old Boys v Huntly Thistle, Waikato Knockout Cup final, Cambridge, 11.9 2016 In the best tradition of an underpaid immigrant dishwasher from a greasy spoon cafe, mighty Melville Old Boys have racked up back to back plates. The Old Boys, hailing from Waikato C Division, beat Waikato B Division champions Huntly Thistle 3-0 in the Waikato Knockout Plate final at Cambridge to reclaim the trophy they won in 2015. As far as trophies go, the battered and beaten plate is more a provincial embarrassment than a provincial icon. It’s the sort of thing your Grandma would have given to the rag and bone man, and indeed, this one may very well have been donated to WaiBOP by Albert Steptoe. So rough is it that Darby McDonald would have no compunction using it as a drip tray under the oil sump of Steve Williams’ Range Rover Sport in his Research Motors workshop. Good Evans: Marc wins it in the wet Melville United v Oratia, Gower Park, August 22, 2017 ... On a day when it was so wet that puddles were starting to form on the Waikato River, Melville’s promotion prospects appeared to be slowly drowning on a waterlogged home pitch, until Evans came to the rescue with a 7-minute second half hat trick featuring a penalty, a delicious free kick, and a slick-as-you-like finish from a peach of a pass by sub Patrick Hinchcliffe. It was something of a surprise that referee Carl Watkins allowed the match to start given the amount of surface water on Gower No 1, with a cloudburst just before kick-off. The fixture had been postponed from a month earlier when a similar amount of surface water led refereeing officials to close the pitch six hours before kick-off. It was wetter than King Neptune’s hankie. Wetter than Angela Jolie. Even the Gower Park frogs had lifejackets. And Zeya Hussaini was using a periscope rather than a drone to film the match... Friday night comedy Melville Nobs v Te Awamutu, 4.5.2018 ... Movie aficionados often flock to Bad Film Festivals, an art-house category of theatre fandom where absolutely dire movies are celebrated. It becomes a transcendental thing. They are so bad they are good. A keen parallel might be drawn with Melville Nobs 7-5 home win over Te Awamutu on Friday night in a match which had 12 goals, five penalties, eight bookings, a send-off, half time called in the middle of an injury stoppage, and more bad calls than a Mumbai telemarketer... Mismatch Lynn-Avon v Melville United (Chatham Cup) Ken Maunder Park, 12.5.2018 Whenever you hear a football purist wax lyrical about the romance of the Chatham Cup and the magic of knockout football, you know bloody well they have no appreciation of the dire spectacle of hopelessly mismatched teams in a horribly lop-sided contest in bleak surroundings over 100km from home, where there is not even the consolation of memorable goals to justify the trip north. New Melville Legzend Tauranga City v Melville United, Links Ave, August 2018 ... But if we are going to talk this up as a brilliant coaching coup, we need to think very hard about the proposition. When a kid scores on debut, you praise the smarts of the coaches. But when he pots a hat trick in under 20 minutes you can't help but start thinking he should have been given a chance months ago. Were our coaches actually asleep at the wheel? Had they not fully noticed his potential when dishing out game time like candy floss to 27 players ahead of him this season? Harry’s game Bay Olympic v Melville United (Chatham Cup semi) Olympic Park, 24.8.2019 Harry has endured more substitutions than a low-fat recipe this season, and too often the only chatter about this quirky 19-year-old has concerned his dodgy haircut or his total indifference to tackling. At a rough count this was his 13th time off the bench this season - and he finally did the bizzo, scoring his first goal (if you overlook the fact he scored against Claudelands Rovers only for the ref to credit it elsewhere). Rather than Harry Hyphen, Harry the Haircut, or Lazy Harry, suddenly we had Harry the Hero. The ugly duckling had become a beautiful (relatively speaking - the haircut still needs work) swan. |