Bert Ormond RIP
An excellent player and a top bloke.
http://www.nzfootball.co.nz/bert-ormond-obituary/
Used to regularly catch the bus from Mairangi Bay to Victoria St and then walk to New market Park to watch football in the early 70's.
That's a name I've heard quite a bit but I'm too young to know about his coaching days with Blockhouse Bay and didn't know much about him.
Thanks for the link to that article. Some fascinating football history.
That was some season for Blockhouse Bay in 1970 under Bert, winning the inaugural National League and the Chatham Cup.
Seems that Bert not only founded a Kiwi football dynasty (two sons and a grand-daughter played for NZ) but he was part of a great football family in Scotland too.
His brother Willie played for Scotland at the 1954 World Cup and managed Scotland at the 1974 World Cup, one of the interesting facts on Bert's Wikipedia page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bert_Ormond
Bert outlived his older brother by 33 years (Willie died in his 50's)
His other brother Gabby was a top Scottish player too.
Willie Ormond:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willie_Ormond
Willie was Scotland manager 1973 - 1977 and managed rivals Herts and Hibs in the late 70's and early 80's before bad health caught up with him and he passed away in 1984.
Outstanding results while in charge of Scotland and reminiscent of the undefeated All Whites at World Cup 2010:
"Ormond steered Scotland to the 1974 World Cup Finals in West Germany. Scotland beat Zaire and drew with Brazil and Yugoslavia to return home as the only unbeaten team in the tournament. They were eliminated after the group stage first round.[4] This was the best ever performance by a Scotland team in a World Cup."
That certainly was a tough group and they were so unlucky not to advance...