1982: every month was Movember for the All Whites

Ahhh, 1982 — when every month was Movem­ber for the All Whites, and our bewhiskered team of British ex-pats and hard-graft­ing locals (and Wyn­ton Rufer) took on the likes of Brazil at that year’s Foot­ball World Cup.

It’s been a long time since the All White’s graced the stage of the World Cup Finals, but, amaz­ing­ly enough, over the next few months there’s an (out­side) chance of the lads going ‘all the way’ again.

Since Aus­tralia has joined the Asia Con­fed­er­a­tion, the Ocea­nia group is now pret­ty much there for the tak­ing by the Kiwi boys. Bar­ring dis­as­ters like the 2006 cam­paign’s loss to the Solomon Islands, New Zealand is most like­ly to go through and face the 5th-ranked Asian qual­i­fi­er (again, a pleas­ant change from pre­vi­ous qual­i­fy­ing rounds, where the Ocea­nia qual­i­fi­er would have to bat­tle past the 5th-ranked South Amer­i­can nation), in a home-and-away play­off for a spot in the 2010 World Cup Finals.

Giv­en the cur­rent Asian rank­ings, that’s most like­ly to be one of Sau­di Ara­bia, Japan, Bahrain or Uzbek­istan — any one of whom the New Zealan­der’s would fan­cy upset­ting on a good day.

But before this can hap­pen, the All Whites need to nail down the Ocea­nia qual­i­fy­ing pool, and, to that end, you can help by head­ing down the Sta­di­um this Wednes­day evening and cheer­ing on the team to a win over Van­u­atu — a win that would guar­an­tee our spot as top team in the Pacif­ic.

New Zealand v. Van­u­atu
Wednes­day, Novem­ber 21st
West­pac Sta­di­um
Gates open at 4.30 pm.
Kick off is at 6pm.
Adults — $27
Child (15yrs and under)- $15
Fam­i­ly (2 adults and 2 chil­dren) — $64
Con­ces­sion (Senior Cit­i­zens 60+) -$15
Stu­dents with valid ID — $15

Get tick­ets online at Tick­etek