Cynics and skeptics notwithstanding, there is an unceasing belief that holds true throughout New Zealand’s small football-loving population.
It is a simple dogged determination that we are never beaten, no matter how bad things may seem. It is a belief that has served the minority of us football fans in this rugby-mad country of four and a half million well on cold, wet, blustery, Saturday mornings, afternoons and evenings throughout our lives.
It has carried us through countless moments of being branded weak, ‘pussies’ even, and shameless actors. We have been told over and over that our sport has the worst fans, the most thuggish players and that our heroes are overpaid and melodramatic. But we never listened.
It is a tribute to our strength that we keep turning up to support our team through the good and bad times. We do no have the crutch of consistently drawing on the unceasing success and indomitable aura that is the All Blacks.
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Our connection with the game comes with a passion and level of commitment so deep that we thrive on the naysayer’s words; we stand up for our sport and profess our love for it over and over. We reinforce our beliefs and continue to play the game we cannot do without. The round ball, not the oval ball, is what we chase and cherish, and in our dreams the jersey we pull over our heads before we walk onto the pitch and sing the national anthem is white, not black.
In classrooms, in the streets, at the pub, we dream, we believe, and we wait for football. When the weekend finally comes, we wake up early to watch our favourite English Premier League clubs play, we make the trip out to our local pitches to compete in our own games, before catching the Nix in the afternoon on TV or, if we are lucky, we make the journey to, and watch our heroes at, Westpac Stadium.
Our belief in our teams, especially the Nix, has remained with us even when the New Zealand Knights were setting records for not scoring for consecutive minutes, or going on long runs without winning a single game. It carried us to the 1982 World Cup when we defeated Saudi Arabia by an improbable margin with a team full of amateurs, and it took us to the 2010 World Cup when Westpac was full to the brim of fans in all white, cheering their team to a successful shot at glory. It is clear to behold in the core members of the Yellow Fever, the fans that have stood by the club since its inception in 2006 and through all of the roller-coaster moments in this club’s short nine-year history.
This club has seen legends made, memorable moments galore, play-off runs, marquee signings, and we never gave up hope that we would keep our club and stay in the A League. Now, with the 10-year extension granted, we have the chance to make sure we have many more of these moments in the future.
The atmosphere, the players and the structure of the club give us hope that one day we can play the game we love and get paid to do it. And yet, if we are too old, we enjoy the game purely because a team in an international arena represents us. The Phoenix and its fans not only represent Wellington, the club and its supporters are representative of the New Zealand football community as a whole. As the nations only professional football team, the Phoenix stand for us all, and we never give up.
That is why this season is not over for us. Despite being ninth on the ladder, we still have a chance to get that final play-off spot and the equation is simple: we take maximum points from the remaining five games, starting with this Sydney clash.
So this week I beg that the Phoenix win just their third away game this season, at the expense of Sydney FC, a team that is winless since round 15. Please Sydney FC, let the run go on for just one more week. It will not matter too much for you, you are still well in play-off contention in the uneasy seventh place, and should finish inside the top four. I just ask both sides for a favour – Phoenix play well, Sydney continue the poor form. Rally the troops Ernie; keep Graham’s lads out this weekend.
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