It was one week ago today…

…(as the Beatles didn’t sing in Sergeant Peppers) in which the White Noise descended upon Wellington Stadium to spur New Zealand on to the Football World Cup.

I got my own little bit of Instant Karma this week with a nice pay back from a photographer I helped out after the game. Peter McDonald, a photographer with the Fairfax stable, saw me running off with the Player Mascots after the anthems and asked me the name of the kid standing with Skipper Ryan Nelsen. I didn’t know but told him I’d find out and tell him after the game. In the post-victory pandemonium I forgot to find him, so on Monday morning I tracked down Peter’s number and gave him the child’s info, including the fact that he was a Petone Junior and that his great Uncle was Barry Pickering, third choice keeper in the 82 team. Peter said this would all make for a nice local colour piece in his employer’s Hutt News community paper, and thanked me for following up.

So as a kind of thanks I guess Peter was happy to fulfil my request for some photos from the match, and of the Players’ Mascots, who I had looked after before the game.

While the Petone Juniors were well pleased that they got to stand next to the All Whites I thought the tougher job was for the Western Suburbs Juniors, who accompanied Bahrain. I told them they had to fight their patriotism and be neutral,that the Bahraini team would be nervous and would need their support. So I was thrilled when this story surfaced about one of the Mascots wishing his Bahraini player good luck, in a most uniquely Kiwi way. I remember Manaia cos he was quiet and calm while others were winding themselves up in anticipation. Coincidentally or not Manaia is a Maori word meaning Spiritual Guardian.

So below are the photos which Peter sent through, not exclusive to this sight per se but still a unique insight into the historic win last Saturday, and my small part in the match.











ALL photos courtesy and copyright of Peter McDonald

A most stressful position

 Spot the difference:















One came to power on a wave of expectation lauded by a public who thought he could right the wrongs of the past and lead the nation into the history books, staking a rightful claim amongst other world powers. He failed miserably and plummeted in public esteem after a catastrophic fall from grace.... The other is former Soviet Leader Boris Yeltsin.


Bahraini football coach Milan Macala, a Czech, will no doubt fall on his sword, or be pushed upon it, after another fall-at-the -last-hurdle World Cup Crusade.

He has finally spoken out saying that his team felt the stress and pressure of the do or die World Cup game in Wellington.

Being a football manager is no doubt a stressful job, as evidenced by the high rate of heart attacks among top flight coaches, but with the risk comes reward and when the dust settles it is, after all, just a game of football.

Try talking about stress and pressure to Macala lookalike Boris Yeltsin. After a tenure pockmarked with corruption, guerilla war and economic collapse you could forgive him for going a wee bit Britney on it:
Yeltsin Highlights Reel

Here's hoping that Macala, by all accounts an honourable foe for All Whites Coach Ricki Herbert last weekend, exits with a bit more grace.

A single red sock

I have always been a scavenger. Like a magpie I strut about the abandoned battlements looking for the golden cartridge which felled the colonel.

In my youth I lived nearby the Arawa racecourse in Rotorua. After raceday I'd scour the grandstand for coin & a winner's lost ticket, often financing a week's worth of lolly from the Dairy with my pickings.

After the New Zealand v. Bahrain World Cup Qualifier last Saturday, while the All Whites dressing room heaved to the Black Eyed Peas (great team- terrible choice of post match music IMHO), the Bahraini dressing room stood empty with the door invitingly ajar.

Some minutes earlier I had seen a most sombre sight outside this very door. The Bahraini number 16, Sayed Mohamed Adnan, who had one hour earlier missed a penalty, a goal which would surely have taken his small (but incredibly rich) island nation to the World Cup in South Africa, was coiled in the foetal position on the ground; a towel over his head, an Official kneeling at his side. Sobbing inconsolably his despair spoke volumes about what the miss meant to him and to his country- a deep gulf of guilt consuming his psyche.

So when I saw that the Bahrainis had sidled off silently into the windy night I was curious as to how they had left the scene of their collective crime.

The dressing room was still and quiet- tape cuttings strewn all over the floor and benches. A full box of bananas and apples left untouched on a table, a fridge full of red and blue Powerade. Pretty standard post stress disorder really, except for a little red sliver in the corner- a single red sock.

I had noticed the Bahraini kit during the game- spiffing Puma brand socks, shirts and jerseys- all elasticity and promise, and now here was a discarded specimen.

I scooped it up, popped it into my bag and searched for its brother. On a massage table I saw it; massacred-cut up into three strips for tape, or perhaps some ritualistic suicide bandana which Mohamed Adnan had prepared for himself, fearing the wrath of his return to Bahrain.

I was a little distraught as I had already pictured myself turning up at a park kick about somewhere with my World Cup Bahraini socks pulled up over my knees, but now this was a lop sided fantasy.

What should I do? There is already a tidy little market in All Whites’ qualification memorabilia, as evidenced by the scorn and angst on this Yellow Fever (All White fans’) forum thread.

But this is different, this is no winner’s trophy- it reeks of failure, despite its rosy hue.

Should I wash it to wear again, or leave it sweat soaked with misery? Shall I auction it online for charity or keep it as my own sordid little souvenir? Help me with my angst fellow football tragics…what should I do with my lonely red sock?