Northern Leagues

Brian Shelley (ex Waitakerie Utd) and Darren White (ex- Auckland City) now playing at Eastern Suburbs. Why?

Brian Shelley going to MAGS?  Haha Chopah that's bloody funny even by you standards.  You must be feeling high after that good win over the weekend.  And I don't think Darren White was ever at MAGS, but I might be wrong.  Nah Kevin must have a bit of $$$ to play with to attract those two.  Now, on the subject of the Northern Prem League, I think we can all see that Manurewa are gone.  Looking at the points needed to avoid the drop, the max Waitakere City can get is 27.  So in all likelihood they will go down as well I think, but it's a three way scrap between them, Three Kings and your lads Chopah.  Comments?

I went and saw the ECB v BO game. Very odd. 

1st half ECB were all over BO as BO looked like they just needed to turn up. They were truly 2nd best by a long shot and it was embarrassing. ECB missed 3 sitters and should've had it won by the half

2nd half was a bit of a reversal but the oddest thing is that the lino got involved and destroyed the game. ECB had a goal disallowed (own goal) cause the guy that crossed it was offside yet he ran 20y down the touch line with the ball at feet then crossed it. BO go up the other end and score and just killed the momentum of the game for ECB. Just rubbish

The game was not exactly an advertisement for good football and it made it a bloody tough watch at times. I question how Jo Bresnahan is an NRFl Premier midfielder. They miss Leigh Kenyon.

For the Maksim Manko train spotters he was just another footballer on the park and is definitely not A League material. 

So looks like Fencibles topped Ellerslie and beat an ASB Premiership All star team then Chopah!!??

I dont really know who Manko is and when I was watching him I thought he was very much average.

As for that disallowed goal the lino had waved his flag earlier then put it down and keeped following play. Then when the goal went in his flag came up again. If that goal was allowed game would have changed.

Oh well we will beat them this weekend

Bit of movement on the transfer front this week: Hibiscus have picked up Dave Self and Nikola from Taka, Jared Colligan with a transfer pending to head back to MAP.

If we get any football in this weekend then here's my picks for Div 2:

Claudelands 2 - 2 Tauranga - Waikato derby game, both teams better going forward than defending so goals expected. I do not envy those blokes playing on Galloway Park after this rain.
Onehunga Mangere 1 - 2 Fencibles - OM been good value at the mountain this year but I think Fencies will edge them.
Oratia 4 - 0 Lynn Avon - West Auckland derby, Oratia will be far too good.
Warkworth 2 - 0 Albany - just about a derby game also, closest team in the div this year to WW anyway. WW too strong at home.
Manukau 0 - 5 Mangere - yet another derby! Mangere will have way too much firepower for Manukau. Another pitch I'm thankful to not be playing on this weekend!
Springs v Waiuku postponed as ground not ready - shambles, poor form from Springs there. .

Anyone with some picks for Prems and Div 1...

By popular demand I have done a mid-season repeat of my previous post looking at all 28 NRFL (men's) pitches in Auckland. Like last time, all have a wide angle photo, close up of a typical area, notes and marks out of 10.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to clean the mud out of my gills...

http://in-the-back-of-the.net/2013/06/23/state-of-the-nation-ii-the-quagmire-strikes-back/

Your place in history guaranteed Enzo. Someone, buy the man a beer! A pair of shoes!

Rumour on Twitter is Tony Lochhead has signed for Eastern Suburbs. Not sure if I believe that or not.

Wow really awesome for Suburbs if he has

Ah now it looks like it's a wind up  #dodgysource

Enzo that pitch report is great. From the tron Porritt stadium is a 0. Wanderers unable to play there and I overheard a farmer at fieldays mention he wouldn't even run his cattle on there. Big ups to our council.

Finally! Western Springs take to the turf at the new Wembley of the West.

Under lights, 5pm this Saturday, v Lynn Avon.

8 - 0 to the Springs. Magic carpet ride. WSFC - the coming FORZA!

Player/coach of the year awards

From AFF website

An exciting new system designed to reveal the top talent in the Lotto NRFL was launched on Tuesday as online public voting opened for the competition’s 2013 player of the year awards.

The voting process will be split in two parts with the first stage asking the public to vote on who they believe has been the best player on each team in a given division.

Stage two, which will open towards the end of the second round of the four respective competitions, will then put the top vote-getters from each team against each other to find the identity of the player of the year for 2013 for each division.

The public will also get the opportunity to vote on the coach of the year with a similar system used to find the best leader in the competition.

The first stage of the coach voting will be done within each of the four divisions with the respective winners put head-to-head in round two to find the ultimate winner.

Auckland Football CEO David Parker said the new system is designed to put those directly involved in the league at the centre of the process which honours the top achievers.

“After using an opposition coach-based system in recent seasons to determine our player of year winners, this year we’ve opted to give everyone a chance to have a say; players, coaches, referees and fans,” Parker said.

“We want to create a process which engages everyone with an interest in the Lotto NRFL, stimulates some activity around our region’s top winter competition and enhances the prestige of the awards themselves.

“We are looking forward to seeing the results of the voting over the weeks to come.”

The Lotto NRFL referee of the year award winner is selected by the league’s referee appointments panel based on reviews by appointed assessors.

Stage one of the voting now is open and will close on July 25. Stage two voting will commence on August 1.

Link: http://www.aucklandfootball.org.nz/index.php?id=44&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=2144&tx_ttnews[backPid]=1&cHash=239cc36cb9

any local wellington footy fans that can explain to me the rules and regs for the O'Brien shield - i'm lead to believe it's a Ranfurly shield type competition and there is a few clubs who want to try and get something like that up and running in the NRFL. 

cheers.

A couple of tasty clashes this weekend;

ECB vs Wanderers

Central vs Bay O

Interesting to see if Wanderers bounce straight back after their Cup exit to Birkenhead last weekend. Anyone know if Singh available for the trip to Auckland ? 

Confirmed. Tuilima to Marseilles 

Where did you see that JV? He played today.

Yep he's on his way, just has to sign contract I believe..probably the most high profile club anybody has gone to from N.Z ?...

Sports were ok in the first half ,but blitzed in the second half....looks like Birkenhead.bays.central......ellerslie need to get winning  not to get sucked into that bottom 2..

Glenfield and suburbs will go up...

Springs .fencibles will go up

Straight swap for Joey Barton?

Would that be rolling like after the Onehunga Sports keeper went two-footed though the back of Godwin ? Only thing that saved him from striaght red and lengthy ban was the direction the ball was moving at time of tackle.

Or would it be when Doobie was left on the ground after a Sports player went in late and kicked his knee? Ref didn't even see that one and had to stop play when it was apparent Birkenhead player was hurt.

Ref offered very little protection to players from what I saw of game (last 30 minutes).

I didn't think there was hardly a bad tackle all game.. 1/2 yellows for sports that's all.......ref was very good

Think if sports can get a few games under lovemores  belt they have a good chance v waitak in chat cup.... No 6 was very good for sports....

The only yellow of the game was at the very end for the penalty. How often can you say in NRFL Prem that you get through 90+ min without a card? To be honest, considering how mild the game was (little protection for the players 3-4-3? There was not one 'bad' tackle all game), the card on the keeper he could have gotten away with not showing and it was just a challenge gone wrong. Nothing heinous about it.

There was a young player that came off with the physio in the 2nd half and said he banged knees with the other guy. Is that the one we could be talking about?

Shane Pascoe at the back was Sports best player so agree with the 6 call. Not sure what the Sports goal was disallowed for.

Anyone go to ECB v Wanderers. Heard that Wanderers dominated but lost late in the game.

I have noticed that from time to time some like to complain about some Northern League clubs throwing money around to attract players and buy success. So I decided to investigate this somewhat.

I went online, got a copy of the most up to date annual reports of as many clubs as I could, and tried my hand at some rudimentary analysis.

Here's the result for anyone interested:

http://in-the-back-of-the.net/2013/07/11/a-numbers-game/

Thanks Toffee! That's the intention...

It's some of the 'team costs' and 'coaching staff' that leave me a bit breathless.  Eastern Suburbs under KF is big.  TKU in 2012 when PM was coach as well.  Birko are up there too...the price of promotion.  Forrest Hill deserves a mention..yikes, as do Ellerslie but at least they got promoted in 2012.  Central Utd...haha well well well no surprise.  But look at ECB and BO.  Big respect for Willy and SK if those figures are right.  They have decent budgets admittedly but no-where near some of the others.

Did you count the part where Bay Olympic pay their players under Knowlesy's cleaning company?