This last week was designated Heritage week by New Zealand Football. The idea being to celebrate the past and reflect on the legacy of NZ's National League's. While there did seem to be a little confusion between whether they were talking about the full Heritage of the National League dating from 1970, when the NZFA were pioneers in establishing the first club based league of any sport in NZ, or the more recent incarnation of the franchise based men's league which came into being in 2004, it was still a worthy exercise.
NZF got current and past stars to talk about how they'd got into football and who they'd seen in the National Leagues that had inspired them and they invited past players to the games. The federations and clubs got on board as well, the degree of which varied, Southern United for example were fairly active publishing pictures of the old Dunedin City club in the 80s, Capital's program covered the results and appearances of past Capital teams as well as the Wellington team at the National Tournaments before the Women's National League was created, while Team Wellington had a program that said Heritage week on the cover but not much else.
It is a good initiative by NZ Football and was also touted as the inaugural Heritage Week which indicates they will do it again next season, which is great. Maybe they could do it to run over two weekends so most teams get a home game and can push their own activities and make it a bigger thing, especially with the great idea of inviting past players along to the games.
CAPITAL 5 CENTRAL 0
National Women's League
Saturday 3rd November
Petone Memorial
Attendance about 50 brave souls
It's not quite summer yet and had you been at Petone Memorial Park on Saturday, or anywhere in Wellington for that matter, you'd be forgiven for thinking Summer was along way off. The only really difference from the depths of winter was it wasn't that cold, but there still was plenty of wind and rain.
In line with Heritage week, this was the 18th National League meeting between the Capital and Central Federations. Capital have dominated with nine wins to Central's two, and had not lost to Central since 2012. The first round result had been a 5-0 win to Capital.
Capital started with the wind and the first half was almost entirely played in the Central half, it took just 12 minutes for them to open the scoring when Anna Green hit the ball from far enough out that it may have been a cross, but when it flew into the top corner she'll no doubt be claiming it was a shot. Sarah Gregorius got the second ten minutes later but due to dealing with the persistent drizzle and trying to get the settings right on my camera I missed it!
Shortly after I was behind the goal and trying to get my camera to focus, it was having issues due to rain and I realised the game was up when I failed to see a shot and the ball hit me in the stomach, just as well I have a bit pf padding there! It was then I decided to give up on the photos and just watch the game. While Capital dominated, Central were playing well to thwart them and putting up a good defensive display and to go into the break only 2-0 down into a typically strong Wellington wind was pretty good performance.
Given the wind it was expected that Central would have more of the play in the second half, but it was in fact Capital that did, Central unable to break down the solid Capital defence in particular Anna Green and Asha Strom. Emma Main made it 3-0 about five minutes into the half. Capital kept pushing and while it was Green on the left making the most of pushing up the wing, the fourth goal came from the right wing, when Kelsi Rutune scuffed a cross into the box and while she was saying sorry the Central keeper failed to gather the ball and Gregorius was on hand to net her fifth of the season. Capital bought on Sarah Alder allowing Green to push even further forward and it paid off when she got her second of the day in added on time.
So despite the strong wind, Capital managed to score more goals going into it than with it. Central did well, especially as they were without captain Michaela Boxall, they are a very young team, but they don't give up and that is admirable especially when you are losing by five or six every week. Capital are starting to look like they have got back that togetherness that seemed slightly lacking at the beginning of the season, it just remains to be seen will they be able to keep it up when Anna Green and Sarah Gregorius depart for the Football Ferns World Cup Qualifying in two weeks time.
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| NZF Player of the week - Capital's Anna Green |
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