Wellington football boom outstrips facilities

Football has become so popular on the back of Phoenix and All Whites success that teams in Wellington have run out of grounds to play on.

Registrations with Wellington's Capital Football have jumped about 20 per cent over the last five years. Anecdotally, numbers appear to have jumped even higher this year, spokesman Cliff Bowden said.

"Both in seniors and juniors, the sport continues to grow... certainly in Wellington," he said.

There were more football teams playing in Wellington school competitions than in Auckland, a byproduct of the high profile football success here, Mr Bowden said.

"Certainly here in Wellington you can't but say the Phoenix has obviously had an awesome impact on the sport," he said.

"I guess at the moment, football is on a pretty big high in terms of the All White's [and] the Football Ferns.

"There are a lot of things the kids can look at and go, wow, they want to be like that."

Mr Bowden said the groundswell of interest in the sport at senior level had reached saturation point, with players now outstripping facilities to play on. Wellington was about seven grounds short.

"We just have a real issue with lack of grounds in the Wellington area to be able to take on many more teams."

Mr Bowden said there were new clubs trying to enter the competition, and existing clubs bringing on new teams.

While growth in senior player numbers - currently standing at about 4000 players - had been rapid, junior growth had been phenomenal.

While player registration numbers were yet to come in for this season, one club which usually received about 15 new players each year, had this year reported 60.

"We've got kids flooding to play the game and so, yeah, we're rapt that that's happening."

"We'd just love to have some more facilities to accommodate them all."

At last count there were about 9000 registered players in the Wellington area, though Mr Bowden believed that number would be higher this year.

Capital Football was working with the council to get more facilities, including artificial turfs, though expected this to take some time.

In spite of the grounds shortage, Capital Football was over the moon about the growth of the game, Mr Bowden said.

I'm sure our little blue friend

my club which is South of Auckland (despite what John Banks and his Super City morons think)

We are the JAFA Borg. You will be assimilated. We will take your potatoes and onions and add them to our own.

The problem in Wgtn is there are loads of NIMBY's and protesters who will all contest any suggested locations. Nimby's always go on about traffic congestion and parking putting them out and Wgtn suburbs and their resident associations have a lot of say - look at how ACDC used up 2/3rds of the allowable late noise nights available to the stadium ea year all due to Thorndon and Wadestown residents absolutely knuckling the council down prior to agreeing to not fight the stadium

and it can take one lone protester constantly appealing to set back things like the indoor stadium complex for years in red tape. I think the WCC will be pro looking good for supporting NZ's new found interest in football but I'm still waiting for the ice rink Kerry Pendergast promised us two elections ago

Thats a bit harsh ,surely the whole point of local democracy is that local residents can have a say with regards to the  local enviroment they live in .

In Wellington City there are so few options for new grounds that converting existing grass to artificial is exactly what's being proposed.

There are a few issues, however, as to make an artificial economically viable it needs to be used a lot, which means at night, which means floodlights, which in many cases means trouble with local residents.

Is Endeavour Park the one out in Whitby where the All Whites trained before playing Bahrain?  That pitch is absolutely gorgeous and those primary kiddies can bugger off.

Yeah thats the one, its been a lush ground for years. Id say its the best pitch ive ever played on.

Have no issue of NIMBYs if a  new turf is established where there wasn't existing facilities but you don't buy a house near Karori Park e.g. and then start complaining about all the scuba divers and surfers in the weekend.

I don't know how it works, but it would seem quite sensible for the new artificial turfs to be laid on EXISTING sports grounds (and probably cheaper too).

the NIMBY factor will still be there but really shouldn't be the bottleneck.

Theyre getting rid of it? It really is a beautiful pitch (when i played on it last a few years ago mind)

Played a few seasons for Suburbs years back and it was always a gorgeous pitch. Only problem was having to shoo the lawn bowlers off before kick off.

It's a crime to turn that into a school.