Have you ever seen anything like it? The Wellington Phoenix were 1-0 up away from home against Sydney FC when they were reduced to ten men by a sudden red card with about twenty to play
When a known transfer target shows up at a game being hosted in the director’s box there’s really only one outcome on the way. Ben Waine didn’t make the trip to Perth for the Wellington Phoenix’s game just before Christmas…
When Callum Wilson was taken ill ahead of Newcastle United’s Boxing Day clash with Leicester City and with Alexander Isak still absent that meant there was nothing for it except to unleash The Woodsman
The season ain’t over until these bad boys get released, The Niche Cache’s National League Team of the Season. A season which ended with triumph for Auckland City... who could have predicted that, aye?
It makes no sense why National League footy gets so little coverage across Aotearoa but you won’t catch The Niche Cache complaining at getting this lane all to ourselves.
It’s been a long time since Newcastle beat Chelsea 1-0 in their most recent competitive fixture. Joe Willock scored the winner in the 67th minute that day as the Magpies won their fifth Premier League game in a row
A football season that began with a couple of postponed cup finals way back in March finally came to an end a week before Christmas as Eastern Suburbs and Western Springs met in the Women’s National League Grand Final
That pesky World Cup break for the blokes and some offseason chilling for a lot of the ladies means that Flying Kiwis hasn’t been so regular lately, so it goes, but we’re back in the swing of it now folks
By a strange quirk of fate, the final round of the season kicked off with a meeting between the two grand finalists. Eastern Suburbs were already guaranteed first and Western Springs already guaranteed second so…
The A-League Men’s returns from its World Cup hiatus this weekend. Bit of a pause in proceedings to watch the Socceroos do their best against Argentina, see Welly Nix old boy Cammy Devlin gap it out of Qatar with Lionel Messi’s match-worm jersey
Into the penultimate round of the season and there was one major issue that we were yet to sort out: who’d be joining Eastern Suburbs in the grand final. Realistically it was always going to be Western Springs but…
They did it. Auckland City began the National League as favourites and they finished it as champions. Chuck it onto the pile alongside the Northern League, Oceania Champions League, and Chatham Cup titles that they’d already won this year
The fellas wrapped things up this week with the exception of the grand final on Sunday. The ladies still have a couple more weeks to go meaning that, just like the start of the campaign, they’re about to get the spotlight all to themselves again
And so we arrive at the final round of the season, one last set of fixtures before the fellas can start spending their weekends doing the holiday shopping instead. Maybe head to the beach for a week
Clearly Vic Esson is a machine because less than a week after she saved that late penalty for the Football Ferns against South Korea she was lining up in goal for the biggest game of Rangers’ SWPL campaign so far
One more week of Men’s National League to go (plus a grand final). Like a summer holiday, it’s almost over when it feels like it’d only just begun.
Friday night as Seddon Fields, definitely the best time to be at Seddon Fields. Under the lights and out on the turf. Listen closely and you can sometimes hear the animals from the zoo down the road
Ideally the Wellington Phoenix would have celebrated their first ever (proper) home game with a memorable win. Realistically they were always up against it facing a Melbourne City team that finished second on the ladder last term
We didn’t get the wins that we were hoping for. Instead we got a 1-0 loss followed by a 1-1 draw in the two-game series against South Korea in Christchurch. But you know what? That’s a pretty decent outcome.
This will not have been a game that the Central girls were circling on the calendar. First versus last on the ladder, with Eastern Suburbs having beaten them 8-0 in the reverse fixture. At least they were at home this time