SS2007-01-02 - Try Supporting a Rubbish Team

[SoccerShoutPodcast]

Phil is back with a quick-ish review of the two rounds of Premiership action.

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[OllieLong]

Phil, Portsmouth still play at Fratton Park.

[SoccerShoutPodcast]

Yeah, my old man emailed me to tell me that, and that the Spurs supporters were all complaining about what a dump it is!

[SoccerShoutPodcast]

Antoinne was the other name I was looking for.

Come back soon Tony!

[skywalker89]

phil, get ur spellings right mate.. its anton!!!

[vurt]

Kiwi Kim here,

I think I can safely say I support a team worse than leeds...

I give you the New Zealand Knights:

The New Zealand Knights F.C., from Auckland (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auckland), New Zealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand), (known as Football Kingz Football Club until 2004), are the only professional football (soccer) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Football_%28soccer%29) team in New Zealand (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand). They play in the recently-formed Hyundai A-League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League), which is Australia's premier football competition.

Despite having a squad boasting several players with extensive experience in English football (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system), many pundits did not rate the Knights as serious contenders for the A-League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League) title, and they were considered favourites for the wooden spoon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wooden_spoon_%28award%29). These predictions turned out to be true, with the New Zealand Knights proving to be terribly out of their depth in their debut A-League (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A-League) season.

The FFA announced that it had revoked the competition licence held by the Knights' owners. An arrangement with NZ Soccer will see the national body step in to manage the club for the remaning five weeks of the regular season, with former All White (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_White)'s player Ricki Herbert (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricki_Herbert) to fill the role of Head Coach [6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Zealand_Knights#_note-revokedlicence). It is unclear at present whether NZS will seek to bid for the licence which now becomes available for the 2007/08 season

Now the team is completely falling apart, and are in danger of being banished from the A-League all together after problems with securing another A-League lisence, dreadful attendance figures and an inability to fully pay the player's wages :(

The risk of relegation is one thing, but getting banished from existence is quite another!
What makes it even more dissapointing is that New Zealand have had quite a few good players come through over the years but most of them just join up with the better A-League clubs while we have to make do with overaged rejects from other countries.

Look out for Jeremy Brockie who joined of Sydney FC from the Knights this season on a two year contract. He is touted as the bright hope of NZ football and with a bit of luck might make it to the EPL. I used to play against him and his club (Suburbs FC) in little old Nelson (south island NZ) and he used to put us to the sword!