Closed for new posts
Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

Hi Phoenix fans, my husband and I are huge Toronto FC fans in Toronto, Canada. Wanted to say thanks to your team for letting us have Jeremy Brockie these last few months. He's had a significant impact on the team, and we'll miss him. We had the good luck of meeting Jeremy post-game one time, and he signed our program/jersey. Super nice guy! Hope you guys have a great season!

My husband and I are actually planning on moving to New Zealand (Mike's an NZ citizen) late 2014/early 2015, so we'll try and get ourselves familiar with the Phoenix as best we can before then. We'll for sure be coming to games once we get to NZ. Will see if we can catch some games online sometime this season.

Here's a little set of photos that I took of his games in Toronto, if anyone is interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniegunther/sets/72157635020996885/


Trialist
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over 11 years

great pics! thanks for sharing :)

Legend
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almost 16 years

Thanks for posting the pics.

Safe to assume you aren't this fan (post #402)

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

Thanks re the photos. Had fun taking them!

Junior82, no, that was some random ass on twitter. Nobody I know in my group of TFC fan friends has a clue who that is.

Wonder if you guys know the answer to a couple of questions my husband and I have.
For those of you who have had a chance to watch TFC games: how does the level of play of MLS teams compare to the A League? Are there online streams to catch Phoenix games for people outside of NZ? As we plan on moving to NZ soon, we are also wondering what internet connections there are like in general. We catch a lot of games online, and pay around $35 CAD per month.

BTW, there is some talk of Brockie returning to TFC again, but not til he's played the next season with you guys. But TFC is a lot of talk, a lot of the time, so no idea if there's truth to that.


Starting XI
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lots of places to find streams online for the a-league, have heard of a few that you can pay for too,but are unsure about them. search google for vipbox and you will find them. its still a long time till our season starts though

Marquee
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almost 14 years
Within New Zealand the only legal streaming solution is for iSky which is a free web streaming service if you have SkyTV installed (which is a satelite based pay tv system).

Basic sky + sports runs at about $80 per month. Unfortunately I don't know of any legal solutions outside of NZ, however if you come to this forum during a game you will see lots of less legal ways of watching it posted.
Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

Thanks! We'll definitely be checking in once your season starts! Looking forward to learning more about the Phoenix and the A League in general.

Cock
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TFC_Fan wrote:

Wonder if you guys know the answer to a couple of questions my husband and I have.
For those of you who have had a chance to watch TFC games: how does the level of play of MLS teams compare to the A League?

This is actually a tough question to answer.

In theory, the MLS *should* be head an shoulders ahead of A League but I really do not think it is. You've got a young kid like Connor Doyle that's just come back from Derby County where he was a fringe player to DC United and he is starting and up for goal of the week so there is a gap there. You then have Brockie going into the MLS and he does not look out of place. Granted when your team is not playing well, it does not take much to step up and look good. Tony Lochhead was there for a spell, Michael Boxall was at Vancouver... I personally think that the MLS has become a bit of a high profile retirement/holiday league (Beckham, Henry etc) where as because the HAL doesn't get the same exposure, we don't get those 'big name' players as such (although Alessandro del Pierro and Emile Heskey does not support my theory).

I think that the MLS has the edge on being a better league but the gap is not much at all if any.

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years
Jeff Vader wrote:
TFC_Fan wrote:

Wonder if you guys know the answer to a couple of questions my husband and I have.
For those of you who have had a chance to watch TFC games: how does the level of play of MLS teams compare to the A League?

This is actually a tough question to answer.

In theory, the MLS *should* be head an shoulders ahead of A League but I really do not think it is. You've got a young kid like Connor Doyle that's just come back from Derby County where he was a fringe player to DC United and he is starting and up for goal of the week so there is a gap there. You then have Brockie going into the MLS and he does not look out of place. Granted when your team is not playing well, it does not take much to step up and look good. Tony Lochhead was there for a spell, Michael Boxall was at Vancouver... I personally think that the MLS has become a bit of a high profile retirement/holiday league (Beckham, Henry etc) where as because the HAL doesn't get the same exposure, we don't get those 'big name' players as such (although Alessandro del Pierro and Emile Heskey does not support my theory).

I think that the MLS has the edge on being a better league but the gap is not much at all if any.



Makes sense. It would be intersting to see a friendly between an A League team vs an MLS team. How many fans do you guys get out at Phoenix games? TFC used to get around 21 thousand, but the numbers are down to around 17-18 thousand now, and even less in the cold weather.  We were talking to some Seattle fans who attended yesterday's game, and they said they get over 30 thousand at each match. Not bad at all!

MLS is, for sure, getting the reputation of being a high profile retirement league. Though we are starting to get some younger talent signing with our teams too.  On TFC, I'd say TFC's Matias Laba (from Argentina) is a good example of this.

TFC is probably not the best example of a typical MLS team. We've had 8 coaches in 7 years, and hundreds of players come and go. Fans are pretty cynical as a result. Ryan Nelsen would have had a warmer and more positive reception here if he'd come in earlier.  The longest that we've had a coach was a year and a half. The shortest was coach #6 who had a mere 10 games. Crazy!!
RR
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Bossi Insider
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about 16 years
TFC_Fan wrote:
Makes sense. It would be intersting to see a friendly between an A League team vs an MLS team. How many fans do you guys get out at Phoenix games? TFC used to get around 21 thousand, but the numbers are down to around 17-18 thousand now, and even less in the cold weather.  We were talking to some Seattle fans who attended yesterday's game, and they said they get over 30 thousand at each match. Not bad at all!

MLS is, for sure, getting the reputation of being a high profile retirement league. Though we are starting to get some younger talent signing with our teams too.  On TFC, I'd say TFC's Matias Laba (from Argentina) is a good example of this.

TFC is probably not the best example of a typical MLS team. We've had 8 coaches in 7 years, and hundreds of players come and go. Fans are pretty cynical as a result. Ryan Nelsen would have had a warmer and more positive reception here if he'd come in earlier.  The longest that we've had a coach was a year and a half. The shortest was coach #6 who had a mere 10 games. Crazy!!
The Nix have about 6k rusted on fans, who will show up regardless of the weather. Any game where we get 10k+ is a bumper crowd.

In terms of level, I think the Central Coast Mariners & Western Sydney Wanderers would be able to match the top 3-4 teams in the MLS. Those were the two Grand Finalists from last season. On their day Melbourne Victory would be up there with them but the rest of us would be bottom half.
Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years
TFC_Fan wrote:
Makes sense. It would be intersting to see a friendly between an A League team vs an MLS team. How many fans do you guys get out at Phoenix games? TFC used to get around 21 thousand, but the numbers are down to around 17-18 thousand now, and even less in the cold weather.  We were talking to some Seattle fans who attended yesterday's game, and they said they get over 30 thousand at each match. Not bad at all!

MLS is, for sure, getting the reputation of being a high profile retirement league. Though we are starting to get some younger talent signing with our teams too.  On TFC, I'd say TFC's Matias Laba (from Argentina) is a good example of this.

TFC is probably not the best example of a typical MLS team. We've had 8 coaches in 7 years, and hundreds of players come and go. Fans are pretty cynical as a result. Ryan Nelsen would have had a warmer and more positive reception here if he'd come in earlier.  The longest that we've had a coach was a year and a half. The shortest was coach #6 who had a mere 10 games. Crazy!!
The Nix have about 6k rusted on fans, who will show up regardless of the weather. Any game where we get 10k+ is a bumper crowd.

In terms of level, I think the Central Coast Mariners & Western Sydney Wanderers would be able to match the top 3-4 teams in the MLS. Those were the two Grand Finalists from last season. On their day Melbourne Victory would be up there with them but the rest of us would be bottom half.


Are those attendance numbers around the same for other teams?  There are huge discrepancies in terms of numbers of fans showing up for teams in MLS.

I believe Seattle, Portland, Philly, LA and Kansas City draw the largest crowds.  Chivas USA has a very small turnout of fans. There's talk of the team being sold, the showing is so poor. TFC's numbers, while down, are still decent.

On a different topic: One thing that surprised us was the hiring of Ryan Nelsen as Head Coach because he has zero coaching experience. We've been wondering what the thoughts of that were of people in NZ. So far, he's done ok with the team he inherited. I'd say fan reaction to him is mixed, but leaning towards favourable at this point.
Trialist
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over 13 years

Worth also watching http://www.aleague.livesport.tv closer to the season - the new TV rights deal announced by the FFA includes worldwide streaming:

Additionally, in partnership with Perform, the digital rights group, WSG will also stream every match played in the A-League worldwide (subject to geo-blocking in selected territories) on www.aleague.livesport.tv.

Though have just seen... "This site is not available in: Australia, New Zealand, North America."

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years
Revel wrote:

Worth also watching http://www.aleague.livesport.tv closer to the season - the new TV rights deal announced by the FFA includes worldwide streaming:

Additionally, in partnership with Perform, the digital rights group, WSG will also stream every match played in the A-League worldwide (subject to geo-blocking in selected territories) on www.aleague.livesport.tv.

Though have just seen... "This site is not available in: Australia, New Zealand, North America."



Actually, it's letting us watch it! Thanks for the link!
Though it may not let us watch the actual games. Will wait and see. No doubt, we'll find streams somehow. We watch a ton of MLS games online on unofficial streams.
RR
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Bossi Insider
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about 16 years
TFC_Fan wrote:
Are those attendance numbers around the same for other teams?  There are huge discrepancies in terms of numbers of fans showing up for teams in MLS.

I believe Seattle, Portland, Philly, LA and Kansas City draw the largest crowds.  Chivas USA has a very small turnout of fans. There's talk of the team being sold, the showing is so poor. TFC's numbers, while down, are still decent.

On a different topic: One thing that surprised us was the hiring of Ryan Nelsen as Head Coach because he has zero coaching experience. We've been wondering what the thoughts of that were of people in NZ. So far, he's done ok with the team he inherited. I'd say fan reaction to him is mixed, but leaning towards favourable at this point.
Last seasons average attendances:

Melbourne Victory 23,089
Sydney FC 18,633
Brisbane Roar 13,417
Newcastle Jets 13,389
Western Sydney Wanderers 12,466
Central Coast Mariners 9,921
Adelaide United 9,593
Perth Glory 8,840
Melbourne Heart 8,484
Wellington Phoenix 6,882

Being one of the smaller market teams and having a wooden spoon season, combined to give us a horrible average last season. Numbers league wide are on the way up but football is still poor cousin to the major sports in Aussie/NZ.

He always looked like he would go into coaching when he retired, he has a mana about him but I think a few were surprised that he went straight into a head coaching role. Hopefully TFC fans give him some time, your roster was in a horrible state. It will take a couple of seasons before it is 'his' team.
Legend
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TFC - "mana" is a Maori word meaning authority.  

Some Australians might use the word "aura" to mean the same thing e.g. "Melbourne Victory has an aura about it... but they are still Tards"

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

[/quote]Last seasons average attendances:

Melbourne Victory 23,089
Sydney FC 18,633
Brisbane Roar 13,417
Newcastle Jets 13,389
Western Sydney Wanderers 12,466
Central Coast Mariners 9,921
Adelaide United 9,593
Perth Glory 8,840
Melbourne Heart 8,484
Wellington Phoenix 6,882

Being one of the smaller market teams and having a wooden spoon season, combined to give us a horrible average last season. Numbers league wide are on the way up but football is still poor cousin to the major sports in Aussie/NZ.

He always looked like he would go into coaching when he retired, he has a mana about him but I think a few were surprised that he went straight into a head coaching role. Hopefully TFC fans give him some time, your roster was in a horrible state. It will take a couple of seasons before it is 'his' team.


Wow, that's a big discrepancy there too, just like in MLS.  It's a similar situation here: in Canada and in the USA there are other sports that are more popular than football.  However, it's starting to grow, slowly but surely.

At this point, Nelsen is overall liked by most of the fans. Though it was quite odd when, at the start of the season, the announcement came that our new Head Coach would not be starting the season with TFC because he was still playing football for QPR!  I'd say the worry is that the owners of TFC will get trigger happy yet again, and not give him enough time. We've seen it again and again with this team. Hopefully they'll keep him around for a few years now!!

Brockie has one more game with us: A huge game against Columbus next weekend. I'm fairly sure they said he'd still be playing in that one, then he's heading back to NZ.

Starting XI
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about 16 years
TFC_Fan wrote:

Hi Phoenix fans, my husband and I are huge Toronto FC fans in Toronto, Canada. Wanted to say thanks to your team for letting us have Jeremy Brockie these last few months. He's had a significant impact on the team, and we'll miss him. We had the good luck of meeting Jeremy post-game one time, and he signed our program/jersey. Super nice guy! Hope you guys have a great season!

My husband and I are actually planning on moving to New Zealand (Mike's an NZ citizen) late 2014/early 2015, so we'll try and get ourselves familiar with the Phoenix as best we can before then. We'll for sure be coming to games once we get to NZ. Will see if we can catch some games online sometime this season.

Here's a little set of photos that I took of his games in Toronto, if anyone is interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniegunther/sets/72157635020996885/


Loving your comments and photos but just want to point out you're probably going to have this thread closed by the moderator soon once he sees it because there is already a "Jeremy Brockie at Toronto" thread here people have been posting on for months.
You might like to copy and paste your posts from this thread onto that one in anticipation as it's valuable to have your comments from Toronto. Please keep posting!!!
There's also a "Ryan Nelsen Coach of Toronto FC" thread here for comments, opinions and info about the team and Ryan more generally:
P.S. did you enjoy the AS Roma friendly? A few years ago Wellington Phoenix hosted Beckham's LA Galaxy and Boca Juniors from Argentina. These friendlies are kind of fun.
Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years
[/quote]

Loving your comments and photos but just want to point out you're probably going to have this thread closed by the moderator soon once he sees it because there is already a "Jeremy Brockie at Toronto" thread here people have been posting on for months.

Check it out here: http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/wellington-phoenix-discussion/topics/jeremy-brockie-toronto-fc/page/24

You might like to copy and paste your posts from this thread onto that one in anticipation as it's valuable to have your comments from Toronto. Please keep posting!!!

There's also a "Ryan Nelsen Coach of Toronto FC" thread here for comments, opinions and info about the team and Ryan more generally:

 http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/kiwi-players-overseas/topics/ryan-nelsen-toronto-fc-coach/page/50

P.S. did you enjoy the AS Roma friendly? A few years ago Wellington Phoenix hosted Beckham's LA Galaxy and Boca Juniors from Argentina. These friendlies are kind of fun.

[/quote]

Oops, ok. Thanks for pointing that out! I figured that this new Brockie thread would be more to do with the end of his time at TFC, and the other one was more about him coming over to begin with. But ya, I probably should have posted in that thread. I will definitely keep posting and check out the other threads.

The Roma friendly was fun to watch. The one thing with the friendlies for us is that they hit us at really bad times. Like in this case: We have two huge matches on the two Saturdays on either side of the friendly.  Many of us fans were petrified that one of our players would get injured (we once lost a key striker for several weeks due to injury) during a friendly. Our roster is already so thin. I'd love for the friendlies to happen at a better time for us, but seems unlikely to happen.
3rd XI
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TFC_Fan wrote:

Thanks! We'll definitely be checking in once your season starts! Looking forward to learning more about the Phoenix and the A League in general.

one thing you need to know is that unless you are a tard you don't love the tards ( Melbourne victory ), adelaide  are red, gold coast are no more same as North queensland fury, Melbourne heart ( jam tards ) usually are crap and hired harry kewall to fail again , perth moan a lot but have a kiwi striker so that's a hard one to bite , central coast are actually not that bad A-legue standard but anything higher not so good eg ACL , Sydney fc have A. Del Piero  that is all .he takes good penalties , WSW ( western Sydney wanderers ) is a long name for a team hence the WSW and also like to light flares you should never visit this place , Brisbane roar won two seasons in a row and nobody likes berisha  p.s they didn't win three , Newcastle are well I don't really  care never really have but they did win one a-league championship didn't they?

And the phoenix you shall see this season happy watching  and CoyN

Cock
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about 15 years

Quality post!!!

Phoenix Academy
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270
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about 11 years
Phoenix Academy
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270
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about 11 years
chefmivec wrote:
TFC_Fan wrote:

Thanks! We'll definitely be checking in once your season starts! Looking forward to learning more about the Phoenix and the A League in general.

one thing you need to know is that unless you are a tard you don't love the tards ( Melbourne victory ), adelaide  are red, gold coast are no more same as North queensland fury, Melbourne heart ( jam tards ) usually are crap and hired harry kewall to fail again , perth moan a lot but have a kiwi striker so that's a hard one to bite , central coast are actually not that bad A-legue standard but anything higher not so good eg ACL , Sydney fc have A. Del Piero  that is all .he takes good penalties , WSW ( western Sydney wanderers ) is a long name for a team hence the WSW and also like to light flares you should never visit this place , Brisbane roar won two seasons in a row and nobody likes berisha  p.s they didn't win three , Newcastle are well I don't really  care never really have but they did win one a-league championship didn't they?

And the phoenix you shall see this season happy watching  and CoyN



Awesome!
Phoenix Academy
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460
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almost 12 years

Hey chefmivec you got the WSW name wrong, it's actually The National Roads and Motorists Association Insurance Western Sydney Wanders Football Club, or shortened NRMAIWSWFC.

Starting XI
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over 12 years
Fruglo wrote:

Hey chefmivec you got the WSW name wrong, it's actually The National Roads and Motorists Association Insurance Western Sydney Wanders Football Club, or shortened NRMAIWSWFC.

For the benefit of TFC_Fan, this is not a joke.

 

Legend
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almost 16 years
Fruglo wrote:

Hey chefmivec you got the WSW name wrong, it's actually The National Roads and Motorists Association Insurance Western Sydney Wanders Football Club, or shortened NRMAIWSWFC.


Have you got your season membership yet Fruglo?


#onlineharassmentmuch


Edit: ;) ... but you could tell me with all due respect to rack off.


3rd XI
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Fruglo wrote:

Hey chefmivec you got the WSW name wrong, it's actually The National Roads and Motorists Association Insurance Western Sydney Wanders Football Club, or shortened NRMAIWSWFC.

thanks for that
3rd XI
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thread Nazi haha

Blue Cod
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over 14 years
TFC_Fan wrote:

Hi Phoenix fans, my husband and I are huge Toronto FC fans in Toronto, Canada. Wanted to say thanks to your team for letting us have Jeremy Brockie these last few months. He's had a significant impact on the team, and we'll miss him. We had the good luck of meeting Jeremy post-game one time, and he signed our program/jersey. Super nice guy! Hope you guys have a great season!

My husband and I are actually planning on moving to New Zealand (Mike's an NZ citizen) late 2014/early 2015, so we'll try and get ourselves familiar with the Phoenix as best we can before then. We'll for sure be coming to games once we get to NZ. Will see if we can catch some games online sometime this season.

Here's a little set of photos that I took of his games in Toronto, if anyone is interested: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stephaniegunther/sets/72157635020996885/


I see you plan to move to NZ and noticed the Phoenix fans on this site failed to mention we also have an (albeit neglected) national league called the ASB Premiership with franchise teams in most main centres. Wellington has Team Wellington (sort of tied in with the Phoenix), Christchurch has Canterbury United and Auckland has Auckland City FC, who will be competing in the Fifa Club World Cup in Morocco in December as the Oceania League champions. Worth checking out local football as well as the A League. Bit like your national Canadian competition as opposed to MLS.

Sorry to intrude, just thought I'd mention it to the newcomers. As you were.

Legend
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over 17 years

On topic please

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

Thanks, bluemagic - will look into that.

Update on Brockie in today's interviews with TFC: he'll be playing two more games with TFC. One, next Saturday (Aug 17th) vs Columbus, and one on the following Saturday vs DC United.  Hopefully he'll end his time with TFC on a high note ie, two wins.

He did say that there's talk of him returning down the line. Doesn't sound like it will be for a while though.

Life and death
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over 17 years

You neglected to say auckland also had Waitakere FC

Marquee
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over 11 years

You neglected to say auckland also had Waitakere FC

LOL! For Bluemagic Waitakerie are but flyblown roadkill on the road to nowhere.

Marquee
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about 15 years
chefmivec wrote:


thread Nazi haha



Self confessed.  I'm just not sure how many Brockie threads the forum needs. 

1. Starting multiple threads. Before you start a new thread please check pages 2 and 3 of a forum or use the search function at the top of the page to see if such a topic already exists. Often what you are asking will already have been covered somewhere else. Please stick to one thread per topic, this is especially important around comments on each match. Also, read the FAQs, your answer may be there.


Jesus wept mods take control etc etc

Phoenix Academy
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about 11 years

Dumb Cannuck, here: I saw the previous Brocks thread and it seemed that it was about his leaving the Phoenix/joining TFC. I'd meant this new one to be more of a: "How Brockie did at TFC" type of deal along with my pics of him. If it's a fail on my part, sorry. 

Starting XI
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about 17 years

Not a fail, dont worry about it !!

George, get with the spirit of it...

Starting XI
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about 16 years
TFC_Fan wrote:

Dumb Cannuck, here: I saw the previous Brocks thread and it seemed that it was about his leaving the Phoenix/joining TFC. I'd meant this new one to be more of a: "How Brockie did at TFC" type of deal along with my pics of him. If it's a fail on my part, sorry. 

Probably better for everyone to post on the original Brockie thread which is still current - pays to click on "Last" page to find the latest posts on a thread - when you clicked on the existing Brockie thread it probably took you to the early pages, not the latest ones commenting on last week's Toronto games: http://www.yellowfever.co.nz/categories/wellington-phoenix-discussion/topics/jeremy-brockie-toronto-fc/page/24
Closed for new posts