In The Zone - The End

Thanks for all your efforts guys. You take the piss out of yourselves but you run a slick well produced Podcast. I listen to quite a number of different ones throughout the week and yours stacks up well to some of the more supposed professionally ones.

I sincerely hope you have a break and come back or that some others take up the baton and run with it.

It's not that easy to find rotating guests to turn up at 7am on a cold winter's morning at my work to talk smack for an hour or so. 

The four of us are good mates, so it's a good laugh for us. But with half the team heading away it seemed like the natural thing to do to take a break.

If anyone still wants me to supply them with smutty jokes I could just record one or two a week and post them online somewhere. This this if you want this.

Well done on the 163 outstanding poddys guys. 

I'll miss you guys, definitely one of the best A-League podcasts, well produced, good banter, informative, and comical. Going to be hard to replace.

Hopefully as said above you're back in the new season.

You guys can fudge off with your praise.

Think we might call for hate mail for our final episode. Hope Ernie Clucks writes in again.

Yeah stop it you guys FFS keep stroking these guys egos and hate to think what we might get. I mean take Smithy as an example look what he is like at the moment. Don't even want to imagine what he would be like if you guys keep stroking him.

His head would get bigger?

Can we please stop talking about stroking.

We could go all Ned Zelic and talk about caressing balls and trails of destruction (....boom!)

Is Smithy the new master stroker?

Strokin'

Live pod to send yas off?

This seems like a pretty drastic way to get someone to pay for the coffees...

If its all about the coffee start a give a little page and ill chip in 2 bucks a week

I'm pretty sure I've listened to everyone over the years, I really appreciate the effort you guys have put in. There are plenty of other A-League podcasts but what makes you guys special is the spotlight you put on the coal face of Wellington football. That will be the aspect most sorely missed.

A superb effort to date fellas, aznd a well deserved and sensibly timed end/break.

Maybe for the final In The Zone you could do this?

https://www.change.org/p/keep-InTheZone-going

I'd love it if you guys took a break and returned for the new season.

You're my favourite pod during the season.  I trust your guys word for updates when shark goes crazy in the a league so you will be missed.

These podcasts have been like watching a baby grow and mature into a young adult. Always informative, often humourous without descending into something condascending. A definite bonus for local football as it gives a platform for comment and encouragement.

I have enjoyed those I have ljstened to and am looking at listening to the back issues I haven't. For amateurs, the pods come across quite professional in my humble opinion.

I enjoyed News swearing a lot in the first podcast. 

Went downhill after that.

ha might go give the first podcast a listen actually. Would be interesting. 

This announcement has ruined my weekend.  I have listened to all of these podcasts, most multiple times, and am gutted.

(Reaches for tissues)

I'm gonna have to find some other way to get Boxey to whisper his brilliant analysis into my ears, and Smith to provide me with a litany bad dad jokes

First Park Life died, now this. Everything I love is taken from me.

Good luck with that. We had to take down the old one because of storage limits. 

More of this please. 

Sam Malcolmson could do a better podcast than you. He'd do it for free. 

Be honest, most of the time the pod was full of cod. Now sod off.

A sad day it is.  I was feeling optimistic about the future, but not now, it's a big grey cloud.  Next we won't get our licence extension... it would tip me over the edge.

Is this the beginning of the end???

I am most concerned that this means there will never be any more major announcements in NZ football ever again. Although, the one that's going to come out after the final In The Zone could be HUGE... maybe this is a calculated big by ITZ to make the "New Zealand can host the FIFA world Cup" come true?

Typical of the mysterious non-transparent exec. THEY get to do a weekly podcast in their spare time, THEY get to decide that they will call it quits, THEY get to choose the music each week.

This podcast would still be going if I had paid $50 and got a t shirt and a YF membership card.

(probably even a fridge magnet and season pin)

Disappointed. Might have to write Stuff the Nation articles now.

My girlfriend asked me yesterday why I was so sad.

"Is it still that U17's business", she said.

I explained that got me angry and went on to explain that the podcast was ending and that made me sad.

She knew I had been mulling over and talking about forming a magazine-style podcast, not exclusively on football (it was meant to be about 'Mens issues'... don't ask). But I'm wondering if there might be enough interest from people here to contribute to a Football focussed pod. 

I love the format of ITZ but I personally don't have the acumen to do what the ITZ crew do (thinking on the spot, verbal riposting, Smithy's Dad jokes, etc). 

The format I was thinking about was more the equivalent of an audio version of a magazine. So if someone had an itch to scratch, say a feature article on "Is the franchise system working for NZ football?" then they could record it themselves in an audio format with interviews, etc, send it in and get it included within a pod distributed regularly.

There might be one regular crew doing a round table on A-League, and a completely different crew looking at NZ football or Kiwi's overseas. Another might be more interested in profiling those dark areas of the game like Administration, etc.

Anyway, these are all just ramblings at this stage.

The real questions are "would the format work?" (it might come across as a bit stiff compared to other laugh a minute pods like ITZ) and "would we have enough active contributors?"

Anyone keen?

Oh - my preferred option is really for ITZ to reguarly continue. 

But if that isn't possible then maybe something like what I have suggested?

How am I supposed to deal with my insomnia now?!?!

Replay old podcasts?

Watch Central Coast play?

Retire? 

No Chance, Sack the pod

Sad face...

So, I'm all about the solution; so for a new poddy (beyond the zone), I can think of a few people with some time on their hands:

- Ricki Herbert (Indian insights)

- Peter O'Leary (Offside)

- Jeremy Clarkson (Hot meals and wheels)

- Phil Rudd (Keepin the beat).

Not recording until tomorrow because as expected, we are all hungover today.

I missed this post.

Will PM you soon Smithy...