The first Wellington Phoenix home pre-season game has been moved for the second time. Originally announced for the Basin Reserve, at some point it was switched to Newtown Park and now, according to the official site it has been moved to Westpac Stadium due to “concerns that Newtown Park would not have the capacity to cope with the big crowd expected.â€
Sunday at 2.00pm is kick-off time and the tickets are only $10 (and free for under 16s). Opposition Sydney FC are one of the A-League glamour sides (former Liverpool and England star Robbie Fowler was over there discussing terms for a move last week) and should give the Phoenix a test.
I’m gutted the match has been moved from the Basin as I wanted to tell the story of the last time there was a major football match there back in 1994 (maybe). The All Whites were playing an exhibition match against top German outfit Werder Bremen and legend Wynton Rufer was going to play a half for each side. As is so often the case, far more people turned up than expected and most of us were still queuing outside when the game kicked off. Anyway, a young lady in one of the flats above the trophy shop opposite decided to ease our pain a little by lifting her t-shirt over her head and giving us a flash. But, I’ll have to tell that story some other time.
If you are a Google Calendar user you can click on the button below to subscribe to my Wellington Phoenix fixtures calendar, letting you know when and where the lads will be playing each weekend so you can either get your tickets or set your MySky.
So tonight I messed up with giving people their lane assignments, which probably means that it’s possible that ClickSuite might have thought that they’d won their round, and Clemenger might have thought that they’d lost theirs (oh who are we kidding, Clemenger would never think that, and that’s why we love them), but as it turns out, it was Bowltron who were the winners on the night. The random point was awarded to the slowest bowler, who happened to be me, on 2.34km. If Silverstripe’s ball had actually made it to the end instead of getting stuck in the gutter, it might have been them, but it wasn’t, and so I totally got myself a happy ending, complete with two strikes after that. But I’m sure if you wanted to read only about me, you’d head straight to Hubris, so the scores are after the jump.
Hadyn originally posted this over at The Dropkicks, but since we used Wellington as the example (and the map looks so nice), it seemed appropriate to cross post it over here…
The gist of the story is that the International Rugby Board, in a bid to halt ‘ambush marketing’ around the venues for the 2011 Rugby World Cup (being held in NZ, didn’t you know?), is requesting a 5km advertising ban around venues where games are being played. To quote Hadyn…
Now without any bias, that is downright in-frickin-sane!
…which is entirely right. Take a look at what a 5km non-advertising zone around the Stadium would actually catch…
…yep – pretty much the entire central city and inlying suburbs. Are all those dairies going to have to take down the hoardings of non-authorised soft-drink manufacturers? Will the buses have all their advertising removed for inner-city services? Oggi’s gonna take down all their billboards? Methinks: No. Way.
Oooh! Things are really getting exciting now.
Former league champions Xero took on Clemenger last night and didn’t come out victorious.
Meanwhile the random point awarded for most gutter balls (chosen by Silverstripe as last week’s random point winners) allowed the Bowlingtonista to give up last place to ClickSuite – although if I could repeat my hilarious joke about there being no ‘I’ in ‘Wellngtonsta Bowlng League’, ClickSuite did once again have the highest scoring individual player. Ryan managed to beat Clemenger’s Dr. Broad for that title even though Dr Broad got four strikes in a row, and ClickSuite are no doubt weighed down by their ridiculous facial hair that they’re growing for Maystache.
And while Bowltron had promised to form into one mighty lion if their score went over 500, unfortunately that just didn’t come to pass. They still creamed us though, even despite our attempts at distraction with clever rhyming chants. League table and individual points after the jump.
| Won | Dr. | Pt. | Rnd. | Total | |
| Xero | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 12 |
| Clemenger | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 10 |
| Silverstripe | 1 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 7 |
| Bowltron | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 6 |
| Bowlingtonista | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Clicksuite | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Dr: Drink Bonus, Pt: Points Bonus, Rnd: Random Bonus. | |||||
Team results and commentary after the jump.
So we met, we bowled, great epic battles were fought, and drinking was the winner on the day. And also Xero. Here’s the league points so far.
| Played | Won | Drawn | Drink bonus | Points Bonus | Total | |
| Bowlingtonista | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Bowltron | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Clemenger | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Clicksuite | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Silverstripe | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Xero | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 6 |
Team bowling scores are after the jump.
We are super pleased and excited to announce that the Wellingtonista Bowling League is officially a happening thing. Game nights will take place once a month until the round-robin is played out. The first night will be Tuesday 24 April at 8pm, so that we can all recover the next day.
There will be four people to a team, and your website/organisation may enter more than one team if you like. There will be a trophy. Register your team here in the comments, or email the.wellingtonista @ gmail.com before next Wednesday 18. We’ll be bowling at The Lanes on Wakefield St, and it’ll cost probably $10 per person per game. Plus the drinks you will want to buy us.
Please do participate. Or are you scared that we will KICK YOUR COLLECTIVE ASSES? Cos we totally will.
Gah. If the stories we’re hearing tonight are true, then we are … underwhelmed.
Seriously, Black Star Wellington was the bomb.
And even Wellington City or Wellington FC were better options.
But … “Phoenix“?
Ah well.
Update. Well, it’s official, and, having slept on it, I suppose it’s something we can live with. At least it’s not the Wellington Bumblebees.
And the Wellingtonista themselves are in need of a name for their 10-pin bowling team.
Suggestions so far…
That Pin-Stars is going to take some beating, but, for the sake of having a name in the hat, howzabout The Strikemasters (in tribute to the 80s Wellington heavy metal band of the same name).
Further monikers welcome.
So, perhaps the most drawn out sports decision ever to be made by an Australasian sporting body has finally been confirmed, and a Wellington bid has won the right field a team in Australia’s A-League soccer competition.
Now all they need is a name (oh, and some players, and a home ground, but let’s not mention that).
So, what do we think. What’s a good name for our local professional football team. The guys over at the A-League discussion forums have come up with some suggestions…
…but, you know, that whole sports team alliteration thing is a bit passé. There’s some support for just continuing the Knights (noooo!), and, likewise, for a good old fashioned appendage like United, FC, or City. Today’s DomPost had these suggestions…
…of which Hornets doesn’t ring too bad, although, do we have hornets in Wellington? Surely the Wellington Killer Bees would be more appropriate? And despite the enthusiasm of the supporters on the back page of the DomPost today, I don’t think ‘Fever’ is the best idea in the world – the rich potential for headline puns when things go horribly wrong is just too much to consider.
Any other thoughts?