Very nice

This Sunday, the Wellington Phoenix play the first of their semi final league playoff matches in the A-League, Australia's top flight football league. They finished high enough (4th place) to mean they have a chance of winning the league, in the final "cup" style tournament.

Naturally enough, I'll be there as always, on the sidelines. We had 15000 fans last week, I expect more on Sunday. Football is really having a boom over here in New Zealand, with the national team qualifying for the World cup and the Wellington team having a chance to win the A-League.

In case anyone is curious, this is how close we are to the action every game. I'm the guy in the orange high-vis, on the bottom left of the screen, right side of the group of four nearest the players. That's my precious stretcher behind us.



Wellington Phoenix vs Central Coast mariners, Feb 12 2010.

Come on Phoenix! Come on Phoenix!


Highlights of the above game

Excellent article.... Really enjoyed reading that. Was talking to you about it when my connection started playing up. Good to see another angle into the football world. The kind of thing reading in 4-4-2 would be good. Cheers mate

Just another quick update. Wellington won their semi final matches, and got into the minor final - the penultimate match before the final. However, they lost to a far better Sydney side. All in all a tremendous season, and ending third in the league was an incredible achievement.

As a thank you for a great season, and because I had managed and trained the stretcher bearers every home match, I was invited to the Players awards ceremony. There was only about 100 people there, including the team and the "wags". Quite an exclusive event.

I got there a bit early, no idea what I should wear, and when I went into the place only two people were there.
* Ricki Herbert, Manager of the Wellington Phoenix and "All Whites" NZ national Squad
* Terry Serepisos, the New Zealand "Donald Trump" (he even hosts NZ Apprentice)

I went straight to the bar.

Anyway, free drink, free delicious food all night and a brilliant experience, seeing the players make in-jokes and insult each other. Paul Ifill won almost everything.

Full list of awards

Link: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Wellington_Phoenix_F...

The Wellington Phoenix host Argentina's Boca Juniors this Friday for a showpiece pre-season match that should be totally fantastic. I have my two benches lines up already as stretcher bearers. What a spectacle!

In a few days I will be doing my duty at another high profile FIFA match. This time it's New Zealand vs Paraguay in a post-World cup friendly 'rematch'. If it's anything like the last big FIFA event I did (world cup qualifier playoff) it's going to be a very interesting spectacle.

I'll try to take a few quick snaps and write up a piece after the event. Can't wait!

So.... What are they really like, Ant? Those footballers? Did they try to chat up your bird? Break a window with a football? If you happened to sleep with one of them in a very drunken night, would you kiss and tell?

Imagine my surprise when I sat down with my dinner, turned on the news, and there I was on TV in all my glory, carrying Federico Santander of Paraguay off the pitch. It felt good. Nice big close up on the news. It's good to see my face on TV and not as part of a police reconstruction or photofit

Wow, how have I missed this blog. Greatly done Ant. I never thought about this and I think very few people notice. Unsung heroes indeed

Funny, but I havent heard ant mention it this season, I'm wondering is he still doing it?  No doubt he'll let us know

Ant, You've inspired this to be my part time job when I'm old enough, haha, for Sydney FC, unless theres a canberra FC

What not to do

Great article, it must be so exciting to be so close to the player and see the whole match at the best place

I've been invited to the players awards ceremony again this season. Its a very exclusive event, with all the top folks in NZ football, as well as the players and staff of the club.

To give an idea, here is what happened last year. I turned up a little early and there were only two people there before me - Ricki Herbert (NZ Intl and Phoenix coach) and Terry Serepisos, New Zealands answer to Donald Trump (he even hosts The Apprentice NZ).

A little later I got talking to a guy and he asked what I do. I told him I run the stretcher bearers for the club. I asked him what he does. He said he runs Vodafone

Wow amazing blog! I must be really cool to watch all the matches from such a close distance