“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hawke's Bay United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Monty Singh was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
“This is not anger. I have thought about it for months, and nothing that has happened lately changed my mind.” The request is on a desk at Hawke's Bay United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Add another name to the list: Auckland City have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Bill Payne. The answer from Hawke's Bay United has not changed — yet.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Hawke's Bay United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Ben Lockyer is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.
There is no fee, no unveiling and no agent on the steps. Ben Boxall has been at this club since he was a boy and is now, formally, one of the first-team squad — which for a local readership beats any signing of any size.
A loan enquiry to Canterbury United: cover, or a look at somebody the club cannot afford to buy yet. Either way the answer will come back inside the week.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Reid is at the centre of it, and the squad will now find out whether the standard rises or the pair of them simply stop speaking.
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Hawke's Bay United can pretend not to have heard.
The name of Joe Smith has come up in conversations Hawke's Bay United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Joe Smith and Hawke's Bay United agree another 3 years.
Joe Smith and a teammate went at it, and not about football. Training grounds are small places and a long season makes them smaller.
Squad10 Aug 2026
Monty Singh falls out with a teammate over standards
The oldest argument in any dressing room and the only one that is genuinely about football: one man thinks another is not putting enough in. It is also the row a manager privately does not mind having happened.