Football nation
Paddy Lewis11/11/2009 9:59:00 a.m.
WHEN I was growing up, I wasn’t the most robust child.
After a couple of years of rugby, my father decided a year of raw meat, spinach and manual labour might be the answer while I took the season off. This was all rather perplexing to a seven year old, and after a couple of winter Saturday mornings driving my parents mad, a friend of theirs suggested I should come and play soccer.
Seeing the sleep-in benefits to this, I was promptly enrolled. After all, so long as none of his rugby racing and beer friends found out, Dad could relax in the knowledge I couldn’t possibly get KO’d playing soccer. I think I still have a sprig embedded somewhere in my calf which gives lie to this hypothesis.
Kid’s soccer in 1975 was brutal. Not only were there the cloggers, nutters, and Vinnie Jones-wannabes, but the coaches were something else. It seemed that anyone with an English accent was automatically rushed into coaching. This brought disastrous results in my case. I don’t remember the bloke’s name, but the parents collectively called him “the Screaming Skull”.
I do remember he was from Liverpool. After a year of his coaching through fear, none of us wanted to be Liverpool or Everton supporters. To demonstrate tackling (or rather, causing the maximum amount of pain in a sliding tackle), he would send his 18-stone bulk at high speed towards seven-year-old ankles. By the end of the season, I thought my name had been changed to “F***ing Useless C***”.
He was a nutter, but was one of many patrolling the sidelines in charge of teams of emotionally scarred under-10s. Years later, covering National League football at Newtown Park or Miramar, I would run into characters very similar to the Skull. Passionate about the game, but completely insane. Luckily, they had become spectators.
For years, New Zealand Soccer was hamstrung by similar twats. Then something happened.
It began with Bill McGowan taking over the reins at the top and turning the organisation around structurally (despite the best efforts of the Poms). The coaching structure and coaching pathways developed.
We saw people like Stu Jacobs and Ricki Herbert coming through. The player development still lagged. Now, thanks in part to Herbert & co but more to NZ Soccer’s strong junior development, we had a New Zealand under-17 team at the business end of a World Cup. The Phoenix still aren’t great, but there has been a clear improvement since they shifted to Wellington.
We have players playing in top competitions all over the world (all we need is Man United to realise they need Ryan Nelsen and football will become HUGE in Godzone).
Now, this weekend, we’re 90 minutes away from heading back to the real World Cup. One would expect we’ll get through. But football is one of those games where one mistake can turn what should be an easy win into a disaster.
The difference is that New Zealand has stepped out of the shadow of England. You can see that once, where we would have followed what England did slavishly, we’re developing our own style of football. The skills are markedly better than we used to have, the young players are showing a Kiwi attitude to playing – not trying to be an ersatz Rio Ferdinand or John Terry.
This weekend, Bahrain will wish they had stayed at home. And on December 5, we will know who the All Whites will have in their World Cup pool next year. We’ve come a long way as a football nation.
After a couple of years of rugby, my father decided a year of raw meat, spinach and manual labour might be the answer while I took the season off. This was all rather perplexing to a seven year old, and after a couple of winter Saturday mornings driving my parents mad, a friend of theirs suggested I should come and play soccer.
Seeing the sleep-in benefits to this, I was promptly enrolled. After all, so long as none of his rugby racing and beer friends found out, Dad could relax in the knowledge I couldn’t possibly get KO’d playing soccer. I think I still have a sprig embedded somewhere in my calf which gives lie to this hypothesis.
Kid’s soccer in 1975 was brutal. Not only were there the cloggers, nutters, and Vinnie Jones-wannabes, but the coaches were something else. It seemed that anyone with an English accent was automatically rushed into coaching. This brought disastrous results in my case. I don’t remember the bloke’s name, but the parents collectively called him “the Screaming Skull”.
I do remember he was from Liverpool. After a year of his coaching through fear, none of us wanted to be Liverpool or Everton supporters. To demonstrate tackling (or rather, causing the maximum amount of pain in a sliding tackle), he would send his 18-stone bulk at high speed towards seven-year-old ankles. By the end of the season, I thought my name had been changed to “F***ing Useless C***”.
He was a nutter, but was one of many patrolling the sidelines in charge of teams of emotionally scarred under-10s. Years later, covering National League football at Newtown Park or Miramar, I would run into characters very similar to the Skull. Passionate about the game, but completely insane. Luckily, they had become spectators.
For years, New Zealand Soccer was hamstrung by similar twats. Then something happened.
It began with Bill McGowan taking over the reins at the top and turning the organisation around structurally (despite the best efforts of the Poms). The coaching structure and coaching pathways developed.
We saw people like Stu Jacobs and Ricki Herbert coming through. The player development still lagged. Now, thanks in part to Herbert & co but more to NZ Soccer’s strong junior development, we had a New Zealand under-17 team at the business end of a World Cup. The Phoenix still aren’t great, but there has been a clear improvement since they shifted to Wellington.
We have players playing in top competitions all over the world (all we need is Man United to realise they need Ryan Nelsen and football will become HUGE in Godzone).
Now, this weekend, we’re 90 minutes away from heading back to the real World Cup. One would expect we’ll get through. But football is one of those games where one mistake can turn what should be an easy win into a disaster.
The difference is that New Zealand has stepped out of the shadow of England. You can see that once, where we would have followed what England did slavishly, we’re developing our own style of football. The skills are markedly better than we used to have, the young players are showing a Kiwi attitude to playing – not trying to be an ersatz Rio Ferdinand or John Terry.
This weekend, Bahrain will wish they had stayed at home. And on December 5, we will know who the All Whites will have in their World Cup pool next year. We’ve come a long way as a football nation.
