The WaiBOP United Thread

 

Well, these are dark and desperate times indeed for all us right-thinking fans who are trying to point out the error of Waikato FC's ways in backing their team of precocious youngsters in the ASB Premiership.

 

There is something funny going on here, when so many national league teams conspire to let Waikato win, when we have clearly established in this thread that Waikato are a joke and a disgrace to the league, no right to be there, coach just in it to run a training camp, bolster his egoetc.

 

Now, I like a joke as much as the next man - unless of course that man is Intheknow, he is a real funny bloke - but what is going on here when Waikato have now been able to win three games on the trot??

 

It is destroying the credibility of those of us who have argued that Waikato has no credibility.

 

What were Otago thinking in losing to a pack of kids?

 

To borrow a recent line from my potential mate Greyhound....

 

 

sh*t, I just hope nobody points out that every time Harry Edge starts, Waikato have won.

 

If more teams don't take this league seriously and start beating Waikato, the game as we know it is in danger.

 

If Edge can get away with just coaching technique, skills and flair into players rather than the blood and snot we aspire to, the game is in big trouble. It will end football as we know it.

 

We can't let him get away with the crazy idea that we can employ the same coaching methods as they do in europe. He must be stopped.

 

Anyway, it's far too quiet here for my liking. I am appealing for moral support from my fellow haters and sceptics in this time of deepest need.

 

Please, some words of comfort from Ray Mysterio, Humbug, intheknow, greyhound etc. even Jeff Vader will do if everyone else is on holiday. (Jeff gets even angrier than me, which is unusual for somebody who knows everything.)

 

But whatever, the important thing is we can't let Waikato Fc get away with winning game after game with boys who haven't even made it to northern league.

 

Mohamed Awad scoring... sh*t, how old is he, 13, 14, 15? It shouldn't be allowed. We definitely need a rule that says nobody younger than 17 is allowed to play, and all teams have to have at least 2 players over 30.

 

And as it stands we definitely need to kick Hawkes' Bay, Manawatu and Otago out of the league for not taking it seriously.

 

 

I was thinking of forming a Waikato support group for alienated fans, unhappy about having such a talented young homegrown team, and not knowing how to relate to success. 

 

Anybody else up for it?  

 

We could be miserable and angry together and hope these kids all get the measles or something.

 

grrrr.

 

Mr Angry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'll say it again, re-read the posts. I don't have an issue with what Waikato are doing. I just think Edge is an idiot pure and simple and there is nepotism in there. I fail to see how this helps Waikato long term if these kids are to get contracts and leave the region, something that I have asked but no one has answered.

 

Over the years I have noticed with my winter club that there is, on averge, a 50 per cent turnover of first team personnel every season.

 

I have not analysed national league squads, apart from noting with Waikato in 2007 there was close to a 90 percent turnover and again in 2011 -  but a similar proportion of player mobility would not surpise me across the board.

 

Iit is a fact of football  life when players are seeking to see where they best fit and the supply and demand equation oscilates accordign to other local factors.

 

When Cole Tinkler left Waikato FC to take up a professional contract after the 04-05 season, the game here- and in general -  celebrated the fact. If some of the current crop break through to a higher level I expect Waikato will similalry accept that as another fact of life in football - players come and go.

 

To answer your question: it will help no more or no less than it has done previously if these kids get contracts.

 

Meanwhile I don't think the charges of nepotism have been proved - unless you know something we don't.

 

As Angry notes, the only times Harry Edge has started, Waikato have won. And when he came on as sub, he scored a fantastic goal. I would suggest you either substantiate the charge or withdraw it at least until Waikato lose or the lad has a shocker.

 

Again, if you are calling someone an idiot, there is a moral obligation to justify your position.

 

Declan Edge has coached youth and reserve teams at my club for the past four years and has done a fine job in developing a group of elite young players. he has been very committed, has a cogent coaching philosphy and is well organised and reliable.

 

Like most coaches, he is a driven man, and knows what he wants. For some, that is the problem with coaches. They tend to have strong views on what they like and don't like. It goes with the territory.

 

However Declan is always prepared to engage in reasoned debate over football matters and defend his views.

 

I don't always agree with him, but can respect his right to take the positions he does.

 

Far from being an idiot, i have found him to be one of the more cerebral and ideas-challenging personalities in the game. We could use a few more independent thinkers in the game.

 

I am interested as to what, from your experiences, has made you conclude he is an idiot.

 

Finally, well done to Waikato FC. Has Waikato ever managed between than a 2-goal winning margin in Dunedin? Even in the days when they were operating $200,000 budgets as opposed to $20 budgets.

 

As I have said in another post, I fundamentally do not have an issue from a football sense what Edge is doing. The question I keep asking how does it benefit Waikato long term and people take that as having a crack. Part of Declans academy, the end goal is pro football and he freely admits he picks his kids (which is part of this 6 days 2ce a day thing). So if these kids get a pro contract overseas, they are gone to the region. If they are not good enough to go overseas, the money is at Waitakere or ACFC - Aaron Scott case in point and Waikato has none (although you got Thomas and Lisette back). So in essence, where does the payback come to Waikato? Granted not all kids will catch on but are you likely to see a 24 yo training 6 days a week twice a day with Declan when he will probably have a job, gf, cars money to answer to etc and at 24, probably wont get a pro contract? Hasn't he stated that the people in his team must be able to subscribe to that first and foremost of training 6 days a week twice a day? Isn't that why other people are not in the team because they are not committed and that rules them out? I'm just repeating what Declan has said here. I have no problem with him requiring that committment, but you have to realise that you severely limit your 'football player' market that can do that. At the end of it, if you have a guy thats been through Declans scheme, not gone overseas, no one feels that player is worth paying money for (because more than a few guys will play for money regardless of the amount) what are you left with? A guy thats got to commit 6 days, twice a day and I come back around to the cycle...

 

The model has to be sustainable to be able to create a wining culture and keep footballers in Waikato. I accept that other methods have not worked so why not give his thing a crack. It can't be any worse right? However footballers do not necessarily come and go as you have stated and if you look at ACFC and Waitakere again, I think the consistency of their personnel attribute as much to their ability to win than the money does. Look at teams in the NRFL and the consistency of players and how those teams get on. You will draw parallels.

 

Making the model around the kids makes it not different than a high school team where the kids come in, spend a couple of years there and go and the teams fortunes fluctuate around that. The result against Manawatu was not a surprise but the Otago one they can rightly crow about because Otago are playing not too badly. At the end of the day, I still come back to how this benefits long term as I have heard others say. If you can answer most that above, you will have answered my question.

 

Back to Edge. If he just got on with it, I think people would be lauding the man and I certainly would too. Instead he puts himself in the press taking shots at HBU and how their franchise is run and how ACFC and Waitakere wont beat them again this year and how his kids play the right way (thats the 2nd yellow card for diving this year now right?). He does it to himself much in the same way I speak up here and it rubs others the wrong way.

 

I think Declan has been genuinely trying to raise the bar around here. He is looking for excellence, rather than mediocrity. In my book, that's worthy of support, just as it was in the Waikato United days when Roger Wilkinson produced some fantastic teams with players training four times a week.

 

It is a positive to be encouraged. Let's not be driven by the lowest common denominator all the time.

 

Declan picks his teams on merit. Sure it is eye of the beholder stuff, but it's odds on someone able to devote 6 days a week to training will be better placed to make the cut.

 

We should embrace that. But we should also acknowledge that nine of his squad are not members of his academy. Many are still part of the waikato set-up without being in the game full-time.

 

But you are correct, we do need a larger model and to see a bigger picture in the Waikato. we can't just be leaving everything up to declan and his lads.

 

There is a responsibility from the wider game to be developing players capable of playing at top domestic level. I forget how many coaches we have working full-time in the game at federation level, but it is a few. The coaches working with northern league clubs, if they are doing a god job, will also be producing players for the national league production line.

 

I think the real challenge in the Waikato is our administrative and financial base.

 

It disturbs me that our federation, for example, is so reluctant to support a move to levy all junior and senior players $2 a head to give the national league a broad financial base. a bit of money would solve a hell of a lot of the issues, just as it has for waitakere and auckland, in my view.

 

You are also quite correct that there does need to be some long term planning done.

 

In the interim, Edge is supplying the positives, not the negatives.

 

 

Meanwhile Edge did not take potshots at Hawke's bay. On the contrary, he was full of admiration for what their new coach, Chris Greatholder is trying to do. You can probably find on-line his programme comments.

 

What he was surprised about was that the previous coach shot through and left things in a relative mess, when their set-up there is potentially very good. But that's something for HB people to talk about, not me.

 

As for the yellow cards, i spoke to team members, and they all felt it was genuinely a penalty and the lad was actually hard done by, with Jamie Cross simply getting it wrong, as sometimes happens.

 

But if that is the worst mud we can throw, well, I think waikato have one of the better misconduct records.

 

I suspect Edge was cruelly misquoted on the Auckland/Waitakere thing and other fundamental errors in that story tend to support that view.

 

hope this helps.

 

 

 

Didn`t see Waikato performing that well in the yoof leauge. (Still it could have been their midget team)

Not to many current age group internationals in comparision to other franchises!

 

I think we are fundamentally on the same thought process. The betterment of Waikato football. There is some interesting points raised and I suspect we could go on for a few hours.

 

There is one thing I want to point out to you:

"What he was surprised about was that the previous coach shot through and left things in a relative mess, when their set-up there is potentially very good. But that's something for HB people to talk about, not me."

 

I was not referring to a programme but the article I think Hawkes Bay Today (I'll try find it to read again). You wont talk about that franchise because its for Hawkes Bay people so then how does Declan get licence to talk about it? I thought it was quite poor form. I believe you focus on your own backyard and don't take shots at what other teams are doing and Declan did violate that unwritten rule.

 

Don't know the guy, but he comes across as a bit of a cock from that article. IMHO.

 

Does anybody moderate or enforce any sort of standards on this forum?

 

Or is this place just descending into a free for all where we can slander, abuse and defame who we like from a position of anonymty?

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't find inappropriate language offensive, but I do struggle with football people having their reputations unfairly  impugned from behind a cloak.

 

My bad. Sorry.

 

 

 

 

Like the Northern League Forum, Bruce? God forbid!

 

Mind you, if they wanted ill-informed xenophobic claptrap they already had Craig Foster so they didn't need the forums.

 

I have seen him in action on the sideline with both senior and junior teams, and more so with the later the rhetoric and choice of words was absolutely appalling.

 

I have had a brief conversation with him regarding his philosophies on training the next generation of professionals. I found his blinkered methodology interesting, but feel he lacks the personal experience in finding the right balance to see it through.

 

Arthur Lydiard wasn`t all about mileage there were other ingredients required.

 

I also believe he is targeting the wrong demographic, but the focus of his academy appears to be built around family members.

 

To me it looks like a case of  I`m the messiah follow me to the promised land, and he does appear to have a flock.

 

Basically he is not the man I would entrust my son of moderate ability too, in the hope of turning him into a successful professional footballer. 

 

Judging by feedback, and as UK Kiwi says, he polarises people. He even said himself there are knockers and 'oh they should give me a chance' but you can only cry wolf so often. Being smug and condescending (since I left Waikato in 06 the previous managers did f**k all or words to that effect)

 

I once tried to have a conversation with him after a game 4 years ago and basically he told me who was I and what did I know and I should just f**k off. I probably don't know as much about football as the majority of others, but that doesn't mean I'm not intelligent enough not to get further into it. So yeah, my rationale is founded in reason.