New Zealand’s newest professional sports team roared (forgive the pun) into life on Saturday, defeating Brisbane 2-0 in their maiden A-Leagues match in front of a raucous crowd of 24,000 freshly minted fans. It was new and exciting but somehow strangely nostalgic – the afternoon sunshine and full house reminiscent of days of yore when the city’s rugby teams could expect big numbers in the stands, albeit on the other side of town.
It was the perfect start for a club that clearly wishes to be more than mediocre. Logan Rogerson (who only last week kicked a blinder of a goal for the All Whites against Malaysia) will go down as the first Black Knight to score a competition goal, even though it was the second of the afternoon for Auckland. The first? An own goal, which is what this afternoon was not. In fact, this could be – and should be – a major turning point for football in New Zealand.
There were shades of Warriors ’95 and Blues ’96 about the day out at Mount Smart. In essence, there was genuine excitement, a sense of adventure, a new era dawning kind of vibe. Aucklanders do love shiny new things, and the club’s opener had been accompanied by a weeks-long hype assault generated largely by Ali Williams, the second-tallest member of the ownership group and husband of successful serial entrepreneur Anna Mowbray. Together, the couple’s sport and society connections make them ideal minority stakeholders. While majority owner US billionaire Bill Foley may have the tin, Williams and Mowbray have the in.
You couldn’t question the passion of the crowd, nor the sense of occasion. “The Port” hit the ground running as the club’s chanters-in-chief, and Rogerson gave them what they wanted, scoring his 74th minute goal right in front of them. A cascade of social media content accompanied the afternoon which only adds to the FOMO phenomenon, thus guaranteeing another torrent of influencer "content" this week, and another bumper crowd for the next home fixture. I’m all for it. Having an A-Leagues team in Auckland makes it feel as if we live in a real city. It almost makes up for the endless road cones, the post-apocalyptic CBD, the broken drawbridge on the Viaduct, and the beach closures after it rains.
Football occupies a very odd position in New Zealand. Every weekend there are thousands of kids kicking the ball around with clubs and schools, junior programmes, and private academies; and we all seem to have an EPL club we support, or most invariably know someone who does. Every major football tournament in the world enjoys a strong broadcast audience here (TVNZ+ recently housed the Euros and viewership numbers were well above expected), and yet it has felt for many decades that the sport remains outside the top tent. Inside: union, league, cricket, with netball still fighting for a corner and basketball trying to open the zip.
New Zealand Football’s financial position is no doubt rosy – after all, you can always fall back on FIFA tossing you a few gold coins from its bottomless sack of doubloons should financial peril threaten – but translating participation numbers into lifelong fans and top of mind storylines that don’t involve sacked coaches and disgruntled players has not proved as simple as one may have thought. Ultimately, it has not helped that New Zealand’s largest town – with all due respect to perennial World Club Championship attendees – has not had a top-flight professional team. Now it does, and that means New Zealand also has a rivalry.
This is why Auckland FC’s maiden season promises to be the game changer football has been searching for. Wellington Phoenix boast one of the greatest fan clubs in New Zealand in The Yellow Fever, pitching up diligently to the capital’s toilet bowl each home game, singing and chanting, and shirtless fans. The problem has been, you’d be lucky to find a dozen away fans to give a bit back to them and it’s the to and fro, and the back and forward, that elevates football as a live experience – not for the round ball game, the incessant PA interruptions, and break in play top 40 snippets of song. No! If you come to watch, you make the noise. It is an innovative strategy that is not likely to catch on with other sports, but it seems to be going OK for football.
And it seems to have started well for Auckland FC and the Port, too. With the summer months just around the corner, don’t be surprised to see the fans continue to flock to Mount Smart to enjoy football in the sunshine and to feel a part of something special. Aucklanders want to feel connected to their clubs, which is why the Breakers and the Warriors have developed such strong fanbases. There’s a chance Auckland FC could well become the biggest of them all.
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