Waitakere United

hmmmm....

Oh well Waitak lost anyway so that transfer hasn't worked wonders for them.

There a total shambles.

Biggest mistake ever letting Embers go...

How did Waitak beat TW last week ?

They were awful against Wanderers on Saturday. Must be something in the water at NHS as the number of misplaced passes was similar to Wednesdays AC v Wanderers game.

The westies set out their game plan pretty early on , playing Shelley in midfield with Bale and Butler - suspect they aimed to bully Wanderers. Didn't work very well and they had little going forward - Biss and Mulligan on the bench would have given them something I would have thought.

Have made some changes in the transfer window but look to be a club in decline. Getting rid of Emblen a major mistake.

It was always a massive mistake to get rid of Emblen and the fact that they could not make it work really shows to the culture of the club I think.

I do wonder why Dicko left. Not a fan but I would have thought he fancied himself there vs playing at Canterbury whom I saw lost in the weekend too. They seem to have a lot of talent sitting there lying around and the good ole boy Jake just strolls back in. Personally, I would gas him first. Granted they have not been better without him and he may well turn the season around for them but whenever he turns up, it seems that he runs the show his way. 

Either way, you can't have Shelley go around again next year if they miss the play offs. With the talent they had and him being involved in the coaching set up both years they have missed out, speaks to the ability of his coaching.

tim myers is signing for team wellington

Has Myers not been playing? Anyone know why? Has been a good player for them.

Waitakere 3 Southern 1 at Fred Taylor in front of about 300.

Poor game.

Some Keystone Cops defending by Southern had Waitak 2-0 up (Manickum) early on. Southern got it back to 2-1 in the 2nd half and looked like they might pinch another one before some more dodgy defending led to Porter making it 3-1 with his first or second touch.

Southern offered little up front with their main tactic being reliant on Jackson's long throw - probably the best I've seen since Keith Hobbs for North Shore in the 70's or Ian Hutchinson for Chelsea in the same era. Flat and to the far post , but Southern really don't have the tall timber to take advantage of it.

Waitak still look disjointed - had Mulligan , Biss , Butler and Bale in Midfield - not sure that the pitch is big enough for all those egos.

Speaking of the pitch - Fred Taylor has some fungal growth on the southern touchline with a lot of bare patches.

I think they are called 'supporters' :)

The rest of your review was on the money I thought. I think Mulligan definitely looks short of match time. Biss is really the only one that does anything. I wonder does he regret not staying in HBU?

I highly doubt it. I don't think the players who left will have changed their opinions on the new coach too much.

A mighty win against WaiBOP. Did anyone see the game?

Yep. Me and 49 others.

A normal turn out. I'm probably the only overseas fan Waitak has. 

There were probably more than 50 there but only just.

Played on the pitch beside the road as normal pitch out of action due to fungal growth.

Not a bad game - WaiBop dominated last 1/2 hour looking for a winner but got caught out on a breakaway.

One distasteful part of the game was the 3 WAiBOp Neanderthal supporters who spent the first half abusing the young Waitak right back (Raniga) and then swapped sides for the second half probably to continue the same. Was not racist abuse but basically constantly chipping away at him. Not necessary and one other spectator did what i wished I had the courage to do and approached them about it and almost got a slap for his troubles.

This is what our national league is reduced to. Hard to throw stones at WaiBOP for all the stuff they have done over the years when one of the so called 'glamour' clubs are like this.

What's that building?

The building is Waitakere City (or United - the same thing effectively) clubrooms. Dressing room on ground floor with main pitch on the other side.

Stalag 15

Le Corbusier.

You wish.

If Waitakere makes the playoffs it will be only to loose against ACFC, another poor season, is time to sack Shelley

Why would Cooksley care?

Waitakere were poor yesterday. Too many *stars* past their useby date and were chasing shadows. Mulligan, Shelley, Boyens, Bale and Butler were all a half step too slow at least. When they did have possession, they did nothing with it. I think 1 shot in the 90th min. The sub that came on had a 15 min muppet cameo which summed it up.

Tackle on Brown by that muppet at the end of the game should have been a straight red. David Brown needs to move overseas before his football careers battered out of him. Wonder if Chris Kerr was happy with his performance Sunday. 

The whole club needs reformatting from players to coaching staff as well as marketing etc. 

A mighty 4-0 win over Team Wellington. 

Waitakere supporters wil be hoping that Canterbury can cause an upset and beat Hawkes Bay tomorrow - because if they do, Waiitak will be in the final.  Based on Team Wellington's efforts today, they will not beat either Waitak or HB.  And they will need to recruit for the O league, otherwise they will just be making up the numbers. 

and if Waitakere had played like that all season - they would have been a lot higher up the table!

I was told TW no showed today and the midfield was invisible for them. Not a good lead in...

Midfield was dire, nothing there. TW were rubbish

it will be an auckland city vs team wellington final and team wellington are just going to get hammered again as they did last year sadly. in both the auckland city and waitakere games they were painful to watch! a disgrace.

To the Twits who think its clever setting up deck chairs right against the ropes in front of everyone sitting down (and knowing everyone is going to have to be sitting down behind you) at Fred Taylor - you're absolute Twits.

That's all.

What was wrong with moving to the other side? We just sat next to them on the floor, I mean it wasn't the smartest thing to do but it was easy to move

Reasonably game though, City far to classy though. The midfield rang rings around Mulligan and co

Was quite a good game - perhaps not as much blood and guts as previous derbys.

Thought AC were quite comfortable apart from the first 15 mins or so when Bowen gave Djordevic a bit of trouble.

Couple of interesting points from the game :

1. No Bale for Waitak - rumour of a bust up between him and Shelley. Even though Bale is on the downward slope of his career still a good player to have on your team.

2. Peter Bult retiring as Waitak chairman. This could be a challenge for Waitak as him and dawkins were the driving force of this franchise and loss of both could see the slide continuing ?

Also

3. Shelley now got his UEFA "A" coaching licence. One of the few.

1: Is that really surprising? Talk of no one being happy in that team.

2: Not a great loss. Bult made dumb decisions chiefly the ousting of Emblen because of the other coaching hats he wore and how it would affect Waitakere. How has it gone since? How was the decision to appoint MacGowan gone?

3: Thats not easy to get. I think this is a requirement for EPL coaches and they have to apply for exemptions for those that do not have it. Ince needed one at Blackburn from memory.

Light relief from the match day programme -

"The biggest day for me at Fred Taylor park was against Ba when around 4000 spectators turned up - it was bedlam at the gate, parking and croud control. I hardly saw any of the match but do recall we won handsomely.. Further drama of that day was when Rex Dawkins thought the gate takings had been stolen. He hid them somewhere safe then promptly forgot where. Luckily his good wife Annie found them 3 days later in the cutlery drawer at home, from where they were quickly despatched to the bank, much to Rex's relief." - Peter Bult, Chairman.

Hello. Not sure I agree with J Vader's rather terse dismissal of Peter Bult.

I hardly know Peter, but as a valedictory I would be quick to acknowledge his long service as a leading club administrator, who could point to a fair few successes and trophies over his time.

And as a fellow administrator of many years now, I have come to appreciate the work and effort that must go in to make stuff happen at club level.

But like Peter, I am getting pretty long in the tooth. (Okay, not as old as you, Graeme Sole, but you get the picture.)

My question is this: Who will comprise the next generation of leading club administrators? Many of us have views on who the next stars on the pitch will be, but who will be the emerging young administrators to keep leading clubs afloat? 

Who are the rising admin stars around the country? Who is standing out from the (lack of the) croud? Who are the administrative young guns of the future?

Because I often wish I could go to the administrator tree and pick a few ripe ones for my committee. Only I can't.