Dino BOTICA

A big sigh of relief after last weeks win! While the message to the players has been about focusing on the next session and letting the results take care of themselves, I’d be lying if I said the search for our first three points hadn’t been playing on everyone's mind. In tricky conditions away at Christchurch, the work rate and togetherness of the lads was excellent and it was great to see us get a bit of our swagger back in front of goal. Next target… a home win! Once again we seemed to get the rough end of New Zealand Football’s travel arrangements last week. A delayed flight from Hamilton resulted in us only arriving at the ground 55 minutes before kick off. We went through a similar experience away at the Wellington Phoenix three weeks ago. In an era where U14 matches are required to have roped off pitches, dugouts for subs and every match filmed…it baffles me how our flagship senior men’s competition can involve such haphazard travel arrangements.

The club celebrates its 50th Jubilee this weekend. It has grown tremendously over this period and I only need to think back to my own playing days here in early 2000’s to see how far the club has come. First Team training sessions would involve sharing the one floodlit pitch with 2-3 other teams and Northern League games were often moved off pitch No. 1 due to its hazardous state. I believe the club is in a really strong position at the moment, with a thriving Academy programme, consistent development of facilities and a strong base of committed and passionate club members. Here’s to another 50 years! Welcome to Paul Hobson and his Birkenhead team. Birkenhead are a side we know well from our battles in the Northern League. It’s no surprise that they’ve made a tremendous start to the National League, today will be a battle as it always is against Birkenhead but we will look forward to this challenge. Hopefully, we can top off a great weekend with a home win!