Out of curiosity, what has Cambridge been doing with the money it has recived from Wood over the years?
Between these two, thats a lot of money it will have recieved, I really hope they have improved their facilities as playing there before I moved overseas just before Wood made his move to Birmingham, the club's facilities were pretty pants.
Supporter of the world's best football teams: Waikato..., Kingz FC, NZ Knights, The Nix, The Argyle & of course the All Whites
Out of curiosity, what has Cambridge been doing with the money it has recived from Wood over the years?
Between these two, thats a lot of money it will have recieved, I really hope they have improved their facilities as playing there before I moved overseas just before Wood made his move to Birmingham, the club's facilities were pretty pants.
Club rooms are still shite, played there the last two weeks... but the new fifa pitches from the woman's WC are nice. The club is huge, easily over a thousand kids down there every Saturday.
There’s always loan potential with a move like this but don’t be too quick to assume it. Portsmouth have a number of injuries in the attacking positions at the moment so Brooke-Smith should at least get a chance to show what he can do in preseason. He’s already been training with the Wellington Phoenix, he’s not coming in cold. He’s got every chance of sticking around on the bench this season given how he’s already got the physicality to hang about.
Pompey finished 18th last season after being 16th the year before. They were in the Premier League as recently as 2009-10 but three relegations in four years saw them fall all the way down to League Two. It took four years to climb out of there and then seven more to get out of League One. This will be their third season back in the Championship so there’s no pressure about promotion, they’ll be happy to settle mid-table which offers some more room for indulge Brooke-Smith’s development.
Up Next: Couple more friendlies before the EFL Cup first round match with West Ham on Sunday 9 August at 2am arrives as the first opportunity for an LBS debut (NZT)
Out of curiosity, what has Cambridge been doing with the money it has recived from Wood over the years?
Between these two, thats a lot of money it will have recieved, I really hope they have improved their facilities as playing there before I moved overseas just before Wood made his move to Birmingham, the club's facilities were pretty pants.
Club rooms are still shite, played there the last two weeks... but the new fifa pitches from the woman's WC are nice. The club is huge, easily over a thousand kids down there every Saturday.
So basically pocketed by certain people within the club.
Supporter of the world's best football teams: Waikato..., Kingz FC, NZ Knights, The Nix, The Argyle & of course the All Whites
about 1 month ago· edited about 1 month ago· History
Or maybe just spending some Woodsman cash helping fund a large junior club programme, trying to keep subs as cheap as possible for mums & dads. Optimistic view.
But wow a thousand kids every Saturday that is huge, for a town of only 23,000 in rugby heartland Waikato. Can't be too expensive to have that many kids playing.
Edit - google tells me Cambridge FC subs are - Juniors: $160
First Kicks (Ages 5–7): $115
No idea if that's standard or a bit cheap. Google also says Cambridge FC has 650 junior players (1,100 across the club). Still an impressive number
Happy to see Greenie state the obvious that we’d have been keen to keep him around a little longer. Definitely as a fan I’d love to have seen him play for us a bit longer.
That said still stoked to see him line up a contract overseas without much fuss. I guess the club were hoping for more, but hopefully there’s a sell on or extra bumps in the contract that can be triggered.
And if he still has good feelings maybe he will come back at some point in his career! When marquees return or towards the end of a glittering career or some such…
about 1 month ago· edited about 1 month ago· History
I'm a season-ticket holder at Fratton Park. I'll be happy to pop on with the odd update on how Luke is doing at Pompey - if it won't annoy people. Regardless, good luck to the Phoenix for the next A-League campaign.
Then another warmup against Darmstadt from Bundesliga 2 on the weekend.
They travel to West Ham in the League Cup, August 9th.
I suspect he's a few weeks off getting any sort of involvement given you've been off-season for a while.
We made a (for us) big signing last week; a striker from the European leagues who is expected to lead the line next season. They have been pre-season training alone waiting for the deal to go through.
Our head coach stated after our pre-season friendly on Saturday that player was three or four weeks away from being available - so presumably a similar timescale, at least, for Luke.
signofthechimes wrote: I'm a season-ticket holder at Fratton Park. I'll be happy to pop on with the odd update on how Luke is doing at Pompey - if it won't annoy people. Regardless, good luck to the Phoenix for the next A-League campaign.
Those updates would be much appreciated like many i wish Luke all the best and am really disappointed we dont get to see him have abreak out season with us, which many of us think was going to be this season. He is a top lad and very appreciative of fans.. Check out some of his highlights on the Phoenix You tube channel
coochiee wrote: Engouraging signs. LBS gets a start in Germany against Darmstadt from Bundesliga 2. From Pmpey's Aussies - Segecic starts also, with Matthews and Waddingham on the pine.
Niche Cache. Cool, lock him in for a Championship season, or playing for the U21s now and again.
Portsmouth were able to get the Luke Brooke-Smith transfer done just in time to sneak him into the starting line-up for their last preseason match – where they hosted Bundesliga 2 side SV Darmstadt (who themselves had a new attacking signing on board in Lee Ho-jae, a 25yo South Korean international who lived for several years during his childhood in Aotearoa after his dad, Lee Ki-hyung, signed with Auckland City – Lee Ho-jae was an Onehunga Sports junior back in the day).
The fact that Brooke-Smith started was down to injuries in the squad around him. That and also they probably wanted to have a decent look at him before the competitive games begin. Nothing to overreact to there... but don’t fall into the trap of anticipating a loan move. That was never on the cards for a project player like this – if you’ve bought him to develop, you want him on your training pitch with your coaches competing with your best players. The benefit of LBS moving over so early is that there’s no harm in sitting on the bench most weeks as an 18-year-old. He’ll get opportunities as and when he earns them (and with his physical profile and talent he could very well surprise a few folks with how much he does). But in case you need extra convincing, here’s his coach outright stating: “we aren’t looking to loan him out”...
John Mousinho: “We played Luke on Saturday because we’ve been short of wide players considering where we are with injuries at the moment and we wanted to bring him in. Ultimately, he’s a player who we think can affect the first-team, it’s much more of a development project as well. Luke has started a handful of games in the A-League and only just turned 18. As you can probably imagine, he’s had a busy summer with a lot of speculation around the transfer, not just for us but there were other clubs involved as well. So he’s not been at it in terms of the levels of fitness and levels of training which maybe some of the players have, but I thought he did well against Darmstadt for his first time out in a Pompey shirt against good opposition. We aren’t looking to loan him out. We brought him in to be a development project, but also someone who we think can affect the squad. He's also our only fit left winger at the moment. If Luke’s good enough to play, he'll play. Probably the way I would envisage it this season is he’ll have an impact off the bench, but be around the first-team because I think he has the attributes to affect the Championship this year.”
Helps that he plays in a position where substitutions are common and you can still make a big impact in small windows. Helps that staying in town will make it easier for him and his family to get settled. Helps that Portsmouth would probably be happy with a mid-table finish which gives them some week-to-week margin for error. This is a great spot for him.
coochiee wrote: League Cup. Pompey travel to West Ham
Gets a start on the basis that we have wide players out injured and are still recruiting with one or two who can play across the front line arriving in the coming days. A tough assignment against a side widely expected to top the Championship this season and return straight back to the Premier League.image.png802.47 KB I believe the game is on beIN sports in NZ.
ballane wrote: Luke getting some positive comments from some fans after his first start. Good stuff
I wasn't there in person but watched on TV - he did pretty well in the circumstances, namely: a) the level of the opposition; b) the management absolutely wouldn't have been intending to start him at this point but for injuries and that we're still recruiting.
Some really nice flashes - he gave Walker-Peters, who has a couple of caps for the national side, plenty to think about on more than one occasion. He looks quick and didn't seem massively out of his depth against a very good side.
All being well (in terms of our recruitment and a few others returning from injury), I'd expect him to feature a lot less in the short-term, but I saw enough today to understand why we think he's one we can develop. He looks a decent prospect.
ballaneBullioncoochieedudurandurante+6HattyCW, LG, martinb, nixin, Simon B, WanderingSheep
29 days ago
Cool experience for LBS to start in front of such a big crowd. Very useful experience to bank away.
West Ham United defeated Portsmouth 3-1 in Saturday's season-opening Carabao Cup first-round tie in front of a record-breaking 53,369 crowd for this stage of the competition at London Stadium
Hard to say how good LBS is - he's had so little game time. IMO he should've had a LOT more. This failure cost the Nix points and probably money too. It's a mystery to me how the Nix and so many here were blind to obvious talent.
nixin wrote: Hard to say how good LBS is - he's had so little game time. IMO he should've had a LOT more. This failure cost the Nix points and probably money too. It's a mystery to me how the Nix and so many here were blind to obvious talent.
Really havnt seen many on here questioning his talent if anything most have made it clear they think he had it and should have had more game time. Pure speculation it cost points, i would love to have seen him have more game time just maybe short cameos were all he could take at the time. You could also ask NZ Football why they took the older Smith instead of giving the younger one some valuable experience to someone who is liable to be at future WCs
And thus his Portsmouth debut saw him walk on at left-wing where he was marked by two-cap England international fullback Kyle Walker-Peters. That’s about as heavy an introduction as he could possibly hope for and the honest reaction is that he did play like a teenager in his first game at this level. There were some sloppy passes and a few spots where the pace of the game got the better of him. No doubt there were nerves involved. Hasn’t had much time to learn the system so he was overly conservative with some of his decisions trying not to make mistakes in his 51 minutes of action. No dramas there. The more he plays, the more comfortable he’ll get. The important thing is that he put in a good shift, that he wasn’t overwhelmed, and that he’s now got this game as a reference to work from. You could sense his confidence growing as he made a few positive contributions. His coach definitely liked what he saw...
John Mousinho: “I thought that if you consider that Luke has only just turned 18, he signed recently, not played many senior games at all and he was up against a full international at right-back, I thought he did very, very well. I think Luke will have an excellent career. This was definitely throwing him in at the deep end here, probably much quicker than we anticipated, starting him away from home against an opposition who were in the Premier League last season. Overall really pleased.”
Choice. Pompey had a great start to the game, shading the first 40-odd minutes to be leading 1-0 thanks to a deflected volley from Adrian Segečić. But they slacked off to concede twice in two minutes before the break and then again shortly after it on the way to a 3-1 defeat. It was hot enough for drinks breaks but this was more a case of West Ham having the class to turn it on in an instant and Pompey not being ready to cope with that. So it goes. It’s sure given LBS a jump-start with his Pompey career – it might reasonably have taken him a month or two to log his first fifty minutes for the club and here he was ticking that off in game one.
Up Next: Championship season begins with Portsmouth vs QPR at 2am on Sunday (NZT)
He got a mention in the press too. Tried a long range effort that the keeper saved but the way it was described.
This is from the BBC...
Portsmouth began brightly and Conor Shaughnessy headed over and debutant Luke Brooke-Smith saw his shot saved before Devlin made the breakthrough on 15 minutes with a brilliant strike....
On Sky they said it was a long range effort.
Proud to have attended the first 175 Consecutive "Home" Wellington Phoenix "A League" Games !!
AucklandPhoenix wrote: Great to have another kiwi actually playing in the Championship.
Hopefully he can manage 25 odd subs, starts and Pompey stay up.
With 10 to 13 players hurt for round 1 he got his chance, now he is using it. The All Whites will benefit from this by the India matches here. Let's see him get called up. Maybe even an assist for Portsmouth by then. 🤞
nixin wrote: Hard to say how good LBS is - he's had so little game time. IMO he should've had a LOT more. This failure cost the Nix points and probably money too. It's a mystery to me how the Nix and so many here were blind to obvious talent.
Really havnt seen many on here questioning his talent if anything most have made it clear they think he had it and should have had more game time. Pure speculation it cost points, i would love to have seen him have more game time just maybe short cameos were all he could take at the time. You could also ask NZ Football why they took the older Smith instead of giving the younger one some valuable experience to someone who is liable to be at future WCs
Check the number of 'thisses' for Valeo's post, mostly forum stalwarts, saying anyone calling for more game time for LBS is "odd". Guess I was the most strident voice here calling for more minutes. Who's odd now?!
nixin wrote: Hard to say how good LBS is - he's had so little game time. IMO he should've had a LOT more. This failure cost the Nix points and probably money too. It's a mystery to me how the Nix and so many here were blind to obvious talent.
Really havnt seen many on here questioning his talent if anything most have made it clear they think he had it and should have had more game time. Pure speculation it cost points, i would love to have seen him have more game time just maybe short cameos were all he could take at the time. You could also ask NZ Football why they took the older Smith instead of giving the younger one some valuable experience to someone who is liable to be at future WCs
Check the number of 'thisses' for Valeo's post, mostly forum stalwarts, saying anyone calling for more game time for LBS is "odd". Guess I was the most strident voice here calling for more minutes. Who's odd now?!
I think I'm tired of some people trying to sulk about Phoenix men's team every month on every topic. He was 16 then 17 then 18 before the move to Portsmouth. He started to develop here and at 18 he can develop more in a bigger club in a bigger league. He will get more game time again age 20 onwards. Let's be grateful that the Phoenix develops these guys to start with and eventually they are All Whites regulars, and move on. Enough of this bitchy stuff.
Watched the first half and I think between this and the West Ham match, he's getting a real trial by fire. While he demonstrated a couple moments of raw talent (exactly what the club want to see), at this level defenders were able to track him and shut him down quite easily. This is a good thing as he will be learning a lot from this experience, vs playing in the U21s team. I would anticipate the rest of the year might look a lot like his Phoenix season last year getting minutes here and there, with the obvious difference of playing in the Championship vs A-Liga.
durandurante wrote: Watched the first half and I think between this and the West Ham match, he's getting a real trial by fire. While he demonstrated a couple moments of raw talent (exactly what the club want to see), at this level defenders were able to track him and shut him down quite easily. This is a good thing as he will be learning a lot from this experience, vs playing in the U21s team. I would anticipate the rest of the year might look a lot like his Phoenix season last year getting minutes here and there, with the obvious difference of playing in the Championship vs A-Liga.
Yes, it is a good challenge for him and I hope by the end of this year he gets a bit better.
durandurante wrote: Watched the first half and I think between this and the West Ham match, he's getting a real trial by fire. While he demonstrated a couple moments of raw talent (exactly what the club want to see), at this level defenders were able to track him and shut him down quite easily. This is a good thing as he will be learning a lot from this experience, vs playing in the U21s team. I would anticipate the rest of the year might look a lot like his Phoenix season last year getting minutes here and there, with the obvious difference of playing in the Championship vs A-Liga.
A good synopsis DuranDurante. I think the hope/intention is for him to get chances here and there to impact games from the bench against tiring opposition as/when the match circumstances dictate. A combination of injuries and incomplete recruitment have seen him given more minutes than I expect he or the club expected at this stage. For what it's worth, he's worked hard and, as you said, has shown some flashes.
I'd expect his minutes to diminish in the coming weeks as others are back to fitness and other new recruits bed in - but he's likely to get chances and, if he's featuring with any sort of regularity off the bench or otherwise, it would suggest to me that he's developing quicker than the club are expecting.
He gave an interview to our local BBC radio station earlier in the week. I was incredibly impressed with how he articulated for one so young - he seemed like a bright young man with a good head on his shoulders which will hopefully serve him well.
durandurante wrote: Watched the first half and I think between this and the West Ham match, he's getting a real trial by fire. While he demonstrated a couple moments of raw talent (exactly what the club want to see), at this level defenders were able to track him and shut him down quite easily. This is a good thing as he will be learning a lot from this experience, vs playing in the U21s team. I would anticipate the rest of the year might look a lot like his Phoenix season last year getting minutes here and there, with the obvious difference of playing in the Championship vs A-Liga.
A good synopsis DuranDurante. I think the hope/intention is for him to get chances here and there to impact games from the bench against tiring opposition as/when the match circumstances dictate. A combination of injuries and incomplete recruitment have seen him given more minutes than I expect he or the club expected at this stage. For what it's worth, he's worked hard and, as you said, has shown some flashes.
I'd expect his minutes to diminish in the coming weeks as others are back to fitness and other new recruits bed in - but he's likely to get chances and, if he's featuring with any sort of regularity off the bench or otherwise, it would suggest to me that he's developing quicker than the club are expecting.
He gave an interview to our local BBC radio station earlier in the week. I was incredibly impressed with how he articulated for one so young - he seemed like a bright young man with a good head on his shoulders which will hopefully serve him well.
Niche Cache. Nice to read he has a big support network around him already in the UK. He's going to settle in there just fine, a big help to hit the ground running.
Guess who held their place in the Portsmouth starting eleven for the Championship opener? Luke Brooke-Smith got 52 minutes on the left-wing against West Ham in the EFL Cup defeat. He then got 45 minutes against QPR in a very similar game to get the Champo rolling. In both games, Pompey started brightly and scored first... only concede goals late in the first half on the way to a 3-1 defeat.
Not a great start for Pompey and we know that LBS is only starting because of injuries elsewhere. Even still, it’s hard not to be fizzed about an 18yo kiwi starting in week one of the Championship regardless of the circumstances. He showed a bit more in his second competitive outing, with his very first touch seeing him drive straight towards his marker to take him on. He was tackled and then conceded a foul... but his big effort to rush back and make a challenge near halfway got a loud cheer from the home fans.
Plus he mustered a pair of shot attempts: one angling inwards popping on target from 20 metres out, the other attempting to turn home a low drilled cross from the middle of the goal but getting blocked by a defender in close attendance. The main thing is the confidence. He already looks like he feels he belongs. You can catch a full replay over here if you wanna compile your own scouting report.
The fact Brooke-Smith only played half a game is because reinforcements are arriving. The lad who replaced him was Ryan Kavuma-McQueen, newly on loan from Chelsea, who is actually six months younger than LBS. That was his debut for Pompey. Another new addition, Marko Milovanović, got about twenty minutes off the bench later on. These are bonus minutes for LBS early in his Pompey tenure and eventually he’ll settle back onto the bench, although hopefully he’s doing enough to ensure he keeps getting cameos.
Luke also did a few media duties through the week, including an extended chat with Portsmouth’s in-house media team. In that he mentioned how former Wellington Phoenix forward David Ball has been helping him settle – Ball is involved as a Player Liaison Manager for GSW Football, the agency that represents LBS. Matt Garbett and Xuan Loke are also repped by those fellas. Brooke-Smith also confirmed that his parents and sister have moved to England (though he has an apartment of his own) and that around 20 of his English-based whanau were there at London Stadium to support him on debut last week. He called his All Whites debut the best day of his life and spoke about how from that moment he was determined to test himself overseas, mentioning the likes of Chris Wood and Elijah Just as inspiration. And he also affirmed his desire to be the kind of player who gets the fans up out of their seats when he’s on the ball.
LBS: “I started at a club called Hora Hora at the top of New Zealand in Whangarei and then moved to a couple of clubs around there. Then when I was around 11, I moved six hours to the middle of the North Island and played for Cambridge for about four years, my local club. Played six months with the first team at 15 and then moved on to Hamilton Wanderers, about half an hour away, at the semi-pro level. From there I got asked to come down to trial, July 2024 just after my sixteenth [birthday], at the Wellington Phoenix. Got offered a three-year contract with them and started playing at a young age which maybe caught the eye of a few people and I got lucky enough that Portsmouth reached out and as soon as I talked with them I knew I wanted to come here.”
That’s a nice move, and he gets the shot on target.
The Championship a talent churn and perhaps he had the chance to play the ball and keep the people around him happy!
Defense is also something it looks like he’s going to need to do a lot more of than he did at the Nix. He was near the scene of the crime for that second, though half the team were.
