Waiheke United 5 Norwest United 1
AFF / NFF Conference
Onetangi Sports Park, Waiheke Island
Saturday 10th September
Attendance : 120 or so
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| The Curva del Waiheke Photo : The JourneyFan |
Having decided to head to Auckland for
Chatham Cup final, it dawned on me that the games would be on the
Sunday and there was the possibility of taking in some football on
the Saturday. So I contacted Enzo from In the back of the net. He was
keen on heading to Whangarei to watch some crazy Italians but had
also been invited to Cambridge to watch a crazy ex All White's (Mike
Groom) team in their cup final. I had it suggested to me that I
should take in the star studded Central United over 35's team which
includes the likes of Ivan Vicelich in their ranks, but in the end it
was the crazy ultra fans of Waiheke United that won the day.
I had heard about the Waiheke United
ultras from an article Enzo had written and also a piece in the
mainstream media . They have several nationalities playing at the
club, the predominant one being Argentinian. With this they bring a
passionate and noisy support with flags, banners and drums. Not bad
for a club which plays at about the 5th tier of NZ
Football.
I met Enzo at the Waiheke Island ferry
terminal and discovered we were to be joined by Yellow Fever
stalwart, KiwiBardy. So on a gloriously sunny day we boarded the
ferry to the picturesque island of Waiheke. An Orca decided to
accompany the ferry but by the time we got our cameras out it was
off. Then it was on to the bus and a 45 minute tiki tour around the
Island, why is it football grounds always seem to be at the end of
bus routes?
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| The angry birds Photo Kiwibardy |
We alighted from the bus at the
entrance to Onetangi Sports Park and were confronted by a mass of
angry birds, well a hell of a lot of chickens, and rather than run
away as chickens usually do these ones came towards us looking for
food, or maybe they thought Kiwibardy was trying to communicate with
them as he tweeted on his phone!
A 10 minute walk later we heard the
drums and a comment they must be warming up sounded plausible until we turned the corner and saw the game was underway. I
asked a spectator what the score was and was told 4-0 to Waiheke, and
that the game was 10 minutes into the second half.
We soon discovered that despite the
coming from a country where football is number one, even the
Argentinians had succumbed to the traditional Kiwi way of life and
had got the game moved to an early kick off so they could get to the
rugby in Hamilton later that night (I suppose it was Argentina that
were playing)
Still we got to see a bit of football
and two more goals as the game ended 5-1 to Waiheke. The Ultras lived
up to their reputation and was worth the visit alone. It was also great to see the team join in the singing and
dancing after the final whistle.
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| Waiheke's Alejo Villasana attempting to fly Photo The JourneyFan |
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| Waiheke United players joining the fans after the game Photo : The JourneyFan |
With there being no bar at the ground
we decided we should start walking back towards the bus stop.
KiwiBardy suggested that we should try hitchhiking and stuck out his
thumb, almost immediately a car stopped, I am using the term car in
the loosest possible terms here, it was a pretty small two door
hatchback with no back seats!
Now, none of us are really known as
small guys, I'm 6”1 , Enzo is a couple of inches taller than me,
while Kiwibardy may be slightly shorter he is not someone who could
be described as small either. Our potential driver seemed to think
our size and his lack of a back seat would be no problem and told us
to jump in. So we did, Enzo took the front, while me & Kiwibardy
clambered on to the myriad of builders tools that were in the place
of the back seat (this also led to our collective imagination being
engaged for a tenth of a second and coming up with the name of Bob
the Builder for our driver). Surprisingly we managed to get in
reasonably easy, I went to close the hatch but Bob the builder had
decided to drive off by then so rather than risk falling out the back
of the car I left it.
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| "Bob The Builder" |
Bob liked to talk and after a big up
of the Waiheke United fans (he was a rugby bloke but goes because the
crowd was brilliant), a short synopsis of his life and how he ended
up on Waiheke, he launched into a rant about cowboy builders and the
NZ building code, it was such a good rant that when Kiwibardy finally
managed to get a word in, and it was a word agreeing with Bob, Bob
was having none of it and shot KiwiBardy's argument down!!!
So there we were, three big blokes and Bob
the Builder cruising along in a Tardis like hatchback, with the hatch
up and the inevitable happened..........a police car went past us the
other way, he obviously clocked us and started slowing down to turn
around. I said to Bob that he may want to pull over before the cop
did, Bob agreed this was a good idea not least because he stated that
there was a good chance he was over the drink drive limit!
Bob's cunning plan, which was worthy
of Blackadders Baldrick, was to jump out the car and go to the Pizza shop, this
was thwarted by the Pizza shop being closed! Bob didn't have a plan B
and by now the policeman had pulled up and was checking out the car.
Again we engaged our collective imagination and came up with the name
of Policeman Pat for the cop.
I'm not sure what it was maybe it was
the Policeman Pat's seeming amazement that us 3 big blokes had
managed to fit into the Tardis hatchback, maybe he bought my sob
story about coming all the way from Wellington to see Waiheke United
play only for the game to be moved to an earlier time (unlikely), but
most likely he was enjoying spending a beautiful day on Waiheke
Island covering for his Island based colleagues which had got him away
from a Friday night Queen Street patrol and was struggling to believe
what he had come across.
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| In the Tardis Car Photo KiwiBardy |
Policeman Pat turned out to be a nice
bloke who let us off with a telling off. Now most people would take a
cop letting you off as a cue to thank him and get away from there
(especially if there is a chance that you could be over the drink
drive limit) but Bob the Builder liked to talk and came out with the
immortal line “I was assaulted last night” and proceeded to show Policeman Pat his black eye.
We started to shuffle away and towards the bus
stop, when Policeman Pat, probably wanting to get away from Bob the
Builder, asked where we were going and offered us a lift. So it was
away from the Tardis Hatchback into a 4 wheel drive Police car, and
lots of dirty looks from people trying to work out what we had
done wrong.
On arriving in Oneroa, I took us up to
a cafe\bar that I knew had Waiheke United FC scarfs and pennants on
the wall, only to find that it was closed (they apparently close at
12 on a Saturday!). Deciding the Polo club type place was probably a
bit too posh for us we found a bar with a great view only to discover
it was closing! Luckily they directed us to a bar downstairs from
them and we finally got a well earned beer and a snack of Chilli Calamari, which Enzo proceeded to adorn his pristine white shirt with.
As we headed off to the ferry, we
agreed it had been some day. But it wasn't quite over as we got
closer to the ferry so did the departure time so we had to run the
last 500 meters, which I was impressed I managed! And we got on to
the gangplank only to be told the ferry was full and we couldn't get
on!
It was a somewhat fitting end to what
had been an adventurous day and I think if I did it again, I'd like
to get the kick off time right and see more of the football next
time!
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| Waiheke Island ferry leaving without us Photo KiwiBardy |
AFTER ALL THIS I DID MANAGE TO GET SOME PHOTOS AT THE FOOTBALL CLICK HERE TO SEE THEM
Footnote : Congratulations to Waiheke
United, who this weekend won the Conference and with it promotion to
Northern League Division 2.
Thank you very much from La banda del pipazo!!! I hope next time you can watch the hole game!!! Please like the facebook page Waiheke United AFC
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