A lot of the 1982 All Whites (Sumner, Almond, Wooddin, Brian Turner, Boath, Bright, Malcolmson, McClure, Hill) were born in Britain (in Hill's case was it Northern Ireland or the Republic?) but we accepted them as Kiwis and most remain here to this day.
Most of the above-named players had arrived in NZ several years before the 1982 Finals- Sumner and Almond about 1973 from memory. But they were nationalised after only a few years and able to play for NZ. That '82 side would never had made the Finals without those guys.
Steve Sumner was only 17 when he touched down on our shores and has now spent most of his life here, as have the others.
Brian Turner is an interesting case- and has much in common with current All White Tommy Smith- in that both were born in Britain and immigrated here as kids with their parents. Both subsequently returned to Britain to play pro football- and the similarity amazingly extends to the fact both signed initially for larger clubs (Chelsea in Brian Turner's case and Ipswich in Smith's ) but both ended up playing for Brentford! Brian scored a lot of goals for "the Bees" in the early 70s before returning to NZ in the mid-70s to play mostly for Mount Wellington. Smith of course is currently on loan there.
Billy McClure came out here in 1979 after escaping the Iranian revolution (he was playing there) and was well worth recruiting for the AWs as a former Liver- pool reserve regular in their great era. He played for us right through the 80s and gave such good service he was still playing Northern Premier League well into his 40s.
In the 90s as wages in Britain far outstripped those here (including for lower or non-league footballers) the incentive for young British players to immigrate dried up (our national league clubs couldn't match what even Vauxhall Conference sides were paying), as football crowds dwindled here. Thus few British-born players made the All Whites after the early nineties.
And by the late 90s we were exporting far more players to play professionally overseas (beyond Australia), many of whom made the All Whites. So the player movement became somewhat reversed. Harry Ngata was an early example of a young Kiwi player who emigrated to Britain as a teenager(in the early 90s), learning his trade there before returning, via Australia, to play in NZ.
So that's surely a good thing, that nearly the entire AWs squad is now NZ-born (or raised) and we can just bolster it by accepting-back NZ-born (or raised) players who had left when young to play overseas (Fallon, Reid, Smith, and McGlinchey- who left when really young!). All those guys were good enough to play age group football for established soccer nations.
Big Pete 652010-03-18 03:32:59
Big Pete 65, Christchurch
�� It is abundantly clear that he took Croatian citizenship to further his footballing career.
"Phoenix till they lose"