Nathan McCullum played for the NZ U23 football team? Didn't know that.
I remember him being in squads around 1999- 2000 but he didn't play any full internationals, only friendlies I think. Boy, did he have pace when he was a young striker! I rate him as one of the best young NZ strikers of that period. Cricket maybe was his second choice:
Sounds that way in this interesting interview with him here:
http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/556982.html
His other career choice was fairly impractical, but one driven by passion. "I love football. I was probably a better football player than I was a cricket player," he says. A one-time holder of the golden boot for South Premier League club Caversham AFC, with 19 goals in a season, McCullum was a prolific striker.
He considered turning it into a full-time gig but knew that would require a life-changing move. "If I was going to try football, I had to take the plunge and move to the UK when I was 17 or 18. At that time I wasn't quite ready to do that. I wasn't mature enough and I wasn't really sure that that's what I wanted to do. Then I started to earn a little bit of money from cricket with Otago and that forged the way for what I was going to do."
McCullum ultimately chose cricket over football, but not without a tinge of regret. "The more I watch football, the more it makes me want to play. I've got mates who play for Otago, and when I go watch them I just want to play, so I don't really even watch now."