Tag: phoenix

Phoenix in ‘not crap’ shock

Welling­ton Phoenix 3 Syd­ney FC 0

The Phoenix made a lot of friends on Sun­day after­noon with a con­fi­dent dis­play against an out of sorts Syd­ney side. Rarely trou­bled at the back, show­ing good enter­prise and pace going for­ward, and superbly mar­shalled by the expe­ri­enced Ross Aloisi in cen­tral mid­field, the Phoenix looked bet­ter than both the Rufer-era Kingz and the woe­ful Knights put togeth­er.

The offi­cial atten­dance was just over 6,000 (which is sen­sa­tion­al for a pre-sea­son match) and the organ­is­ers sen­si­bly stuck us all on one side of the ground to help har­ness the atmos­phere. The offi­cial site has yet to be updat­ed with the result and Stuff don’t have a match report so I’ll tell you that there were two goals for Shane Smeltz plus an own goal from an unknown Syd­ney play­er.

The Brazil­ian num­ber 4 Cle­ber­son is going to be a def­i­nite crowd favourite — he’s a big lump of a bloke and he total­ly bossed the cen­tral defence, win­ning every­thing in the air — and com­pa­tri­ot Cortes looked pret­ty live­ly down the right wing.

Phoenix match tick­ets go on sale on August 13 and I’d rec­om­mend get­ting into them ear­ly, par­tic­u­lar­ly as more than half the games are kid-friend­ly Sun­day after­noon affairs and it won’t stay this cold for­ev­er.

Phoenix: Warm-up Match Moved Again

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.”

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.

Wellington Phoenix FC

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.

What’s in a name #1

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…

• Welling­ton Wiz­ards
• Welling­ton Won­ders
• Welling­ton Wan­der­ers

…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…

• Welling­ton Thun­der
• Welling­ton Fever
• Welling­ton Hor­nets
• Welling­ton Blast

…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?