Phoenix v West Ham | Wed 23rd | Eden Park | 7:30pm | Faltering Fullback

going down,going down,going down,

Only 3 and a half weeks until West Ham's first league game. No wonder Allardyce looked grim.

But didn't we do well?!!!

EPIC times in the Fever Zone. No-one was prepared for shirts off! Best chants: "If you can't believe we're winning, clap your hands" and "Free McGlinchey / let him know it's Phoenix Time". And finally: WE BEAT PREMIER LEAGUE!

Backing up what other posters have said: Reira massive, Gorrin red-hot, sign Doyle. McLeary was pretty shite and let WHU get away with some dodgy pushes sometimes; but they did get a yellow card in the first half sometime. WHU's #24 (African name?) was pretty good but there was no-one getting on the end of his crosses.

I wonder what the Knitting Circle are thinking. ACFC would have beaten them 5-0?

Any crowd figures? Looked 20,000 easy at the venue.

Why Simon Hill these days?

To be fair, you're a noted doom monger so not too sure when you're being serious ;)

Also, I very much doubt any Euro side would take a punt on a over 30 A-League midfielder, no matter how good he is. Too bad for Riera really; if only this happened 5 years ago for him. Still, he's probably not complaining!

"The crowd of 19,183 was less than the 21,000 the Phoenix board needed to break even."

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sport/news/article.cfm?c...

FUUUUUUUCK YEEAAAH

is it considered rude that I am extra satisfied because sydney sucked?

Crowd was such that the nix will lose a small amount of money but by crikey, I was at the match and I can tell you that they picked up a wad of new fans so, overall, all good.

Edit: I'm told it was 19K.

Ah well. Perhaps the Eden Park performance will help to sell out the double-header and it'll be a profit overall. One thing I was disappointed about was that the Hammers fans only sing when they're scoring / getting corners.

Dont quite agree with that. Casual bandwagon fans will jump off as fast as they jump on. Still. even if we only got 50 more real supporters then its worth it.

Likely sell-out at Wellington, and did I read that they were underwritten for the Dunedin game?  So should break even or profit overall? 

Biggest victory: we actually got at least one bank of the crowd to "Stand Up For The Phoenix" in the 85th minute.

Hope so.

I was the only guy to tops off in my section but I brought my dad and a friend, EPL stalwarts, who were most impressed by the style of play. They were going on and on about how this was not a fluke, it was deserved. 

Personally I think it was a good training run. Shame about the quality of the opposition LOOOOOOL

Oh, yea of little faith...

Big Sam should just swap squads with the Nix and give them 50 million pounds so they can dump the worst West Ham players and sign decent ones.

https://www.westhamtillidie.com/posts/2014/07/22/p...

OPPOSITION Q & A

By Sean Whetstone 22 Jul 2014 at 12:49 75 comments

Today we speak to Phoenix Wellington fan Guy Smith from www.yellowfever.co.nz

What is your Achilles heel?

We’re from New Zealand, so not being very good at football is definitely a limitation.

Score and prediction for the match? 

Comfortable win to Hammers. You’ll give us a goal though. Maybe 3-1.

It makes me more happy to have pissed off some aussies in the process (victory fans mainly me thinks because they're arrogant huge knobs). 

That was f*cking immense. Gorrin was the business, and Burn's shot that went wide was unbelievable. We sat with the West Ham fans and their banter was top notch. At 2-0 down their chanting turned to "We lose everyweek, you're nothing special." Top fans and great work.

If anyone is interested, first half here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqEp079rheQ

No worries.  We drew 3-3 with Seattle Sounders.  

#walkinthepark

Epic performance and result. Well done Nix

Nice link - already making headlines overseas - Nice photos

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-...

Another custom that won't have amused the Hammers came from the Phoenix fans, who traditionally take their tops off if their team is leading going into the final 10 minutes of a match.

Only the fifth time a NZ club or regional selection has beaten a touring British side in all 96 games since 1937(excludes games against the All Whites). And only the second win by a NZ club side. The Nix are now as good as Christchurch United 1976 who beat Hearts (Christchurch United also drew with the touring England B in 1978).

Previous wins:

http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/NZRepSoccer/britis...

1968	Cardiff City	2-3	Central League

1982   Bournemouth

1-2

Taranaki

Good to see Hearts lost over here.

Just another thing Auckland did better than us. Great.

:)

Hope those four talks at work go well tomorrow mate ,might have to use sign language !

Bittter ,bitter ,bitter !!

Big Pete 65 wrote:

Only the fifth time a NZ club or regional selection has beaten a touring British side in all 96 games since 1937(excludes games against the All Whites). And only the second win by a NZ club side. The Nix are now as good as Christchurch United 1976 who beat Hearts (Christchurch United also drew with the touring England B in 1978).

Previous wins:

http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/NZRepSoccer/britis...

1968	Cardiff City	2-3	Central League

1973

Stoke City

1-3

Auckland

1976

Heart of Midlothian

0-1

Christchurch United

Bournemouth

1-2

Taranaki

I seem to remember Dunfermline Athletic beating the All Whites back in the mid 90's ?not exactly what you are talking about but interesting !

There was some really encouraging signs in this performance.

The Spanish midfield duo looked good, we looked damn well organised and fantastic on the break!

Smithy ,ah bless him !

Ultimate Reverse Jinx

Anyone got links to hi-res photos? would love to have a look.

Kiwi Jambo wrote:

Big Pete 65 wrote:

Only the fifth time a NZ club or regional selection has beaten a touring British side in all 96 games since 1937(excludes games against the All Whites). And only the second win by a NZ club side. The Nix are now as good as Christchurch United 1976 who beat Hearts (Christchurch United also drew with the touring England B in 1978).

Previous wins:

http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/NZRepSoccer/britis...

1968	Cardiff City	2-3	Central League

1973

Stoke City

1-3

Auckland

1976

Heart of Midlothian

0-1

Christchurch United

Bournemouth

1-2

Taranaki

I seem to remember Dunfermline Athletic beating the All Whites back in the mid 90's ?not exactly what you are talking about but intersting !

2002: The results from that Dunfermline tour are on the link above - not a strong side and neither were the AW's then. They beat the AW's 1-0 in the first game but were thrashed 4-2 by the AW's in the second.

That was the most recent visit by a touring British club until the current Football United tour.

Before the 1990's tours were pretty frequent  - a British side or sides toured NZ every year of the 1970's except 1970.

Some teams played many games here  -Bournemouth played eight games in 1982 with Harry Redknapp as assistant manager.

Sheffield United and Blackpool toured NZ playing eachother an incredible 11 times in 1965.

Kudos to Ifill for the commentary, which I think he'd be great as an ongoing thing, I still think we should sign him as a super-sub but if not, it's clear that he's a far better commenter than the muppets that we usually get. 

Wedding tackle !!!!  Owwww!!!!

http://www.whufc.com/articles/20140723/phoenix-giv...

Big sams views on westham site

One thing's for sure  - that was a great night for NZ Football. Phoenix fully deserved the win, and as good as Riera was, Sigmund was immense. Very promising signs for the season ahead

Sigmund seems to be getting quicker and quicker with each year