Marked for Monty Garbett
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Boardroom8 Mar 2032
Chris Singh has until the next board meeting
What was said behind closed doors has now been said in front of a microphone. Everybody at Waitakere United can do the arithmetic, including the man it is aimed at.
Squad8 Mar 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 52 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom8 Mar 2032
Nothing has been announced and everybody understands what it means. A board that summons the whole football department on a Tuesday morning is a board that has stopped believing the problem will fix itself.
Market8 Mar 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Waitakere United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market8 Mar 2032
“I have nothing bad to say about this place. I just need to be somewhere else.” It is in writing now, which changes what Waitakere United can pretend not to have heard.
Squad8 Mar 2032
Bill Payne in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match1 Mar 2032
Position 7, 3 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Squad1 Mar 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 59 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad1 Mar 2032
“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” Waitakere United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces23 Feb 2032
Anger at Waitakere United spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Boardroom23 Feb 2032
Pressure builds in the Waitakere United boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Squad23 Feb 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 66 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market23 Feb 2032
“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 Waitakere United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad23 Feb 2032
Bill Payne in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad16 Feb 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 73 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Squad16 Feb 2032
Kosta Cacace: that is not what I was promised
“Things were said to me before I signed. I am not going to repeat them, but I remember all of them.” Waitakere United have not answered, which is an answer of sorts.
Market16 Feb 2032
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Tommy Van Hattum will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Waitakere United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad9 Feb 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 80 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market9 Feb 2032
The clubs have agreed terms, and what remains is formality: a medical, a photograph, a signature. Nobody at Waitakere United is pretending he will be back in the shirt.
Market9 Feb 2032
“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 Waitakere United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Bill Payne in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Feb 2032
“The easiest signature of my career.” James Lockyer and Waitakere United agree another 2 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
Squad9 Feb 2032
Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dane Sutton 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match2 Feb 2032
Position 7, 3 points, and a fixture list with fewer games left in it than excuses. The arithmetic is not cruel yet, but it has stopped being kind.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
The board’s statement ran to three sentences and one of them mentioned results. Chris Singh has managed long enough to translate: win soon, or the next statement is shorter.
Squad2 Feb 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 87 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Market2 Feb 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad2 Feb 2032
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad2 Feb 2032
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” James Lockyer and Waitakere United agree another 2 years.
Squad2 Feb 2032
The medical room confirms 19 days on the sidelines for Michael Kirwan, and a plan built around him now has to be rebuilt.
Boardroom2 Feb 2032
$384.5K taken back off the Waitakere United table
What was available in the summer has quietly gone. Upstairs nobody will call it a change of ambition; downstairs nobody will call it anything else.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces26 Jan 2032
Anger at Waitakere United spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad26 Jan 2032
Liberato Cacace damages knee ligaments — 14 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 14 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Squad26 Jan 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 94 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom26 Jan 2032
Pressure builds in the Waitakere United boardroom
The directors have stopped offering the manager public warmth. In football that is usually the stage before the short statement.
Market26 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Market26 Jan 2032
The bid was some way short and Waitakere United did not need long over it. Nobody in the game reads a first refusal as the end of anything.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad19 Jan 2032
Liberato Cacace damages knee ligaments — 21 days out
The words a physio says slowly. 21 days is what the club will announce and everybody who has heard this diagnosis before knows the number is the least of it: the knee comes back before the player does.
Match17 Jan 2032
1‑4 to Southern United, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Squad19 Jan 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 101 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market19 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Match17 Jan 2032
6 without a win now, and the ground has developed the special quiet of a crowd that expects the worst. One scrappy 1-0 would cure most of it; that is the maddening part.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
No sign of nerves from Sam Payne at 21 — 7.67
The hardest thing about being 21 in a senior side is that nobody makes allowances. Sam Payne did not need any: 7.67, and he looked the most comfortable man on the pitch.
Market19 Jan 2032
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Match17 Jan 2032
6 matches, two or more conceded in every one of them. Sides that create as much as this can live with it for a while. Nobody lives with it forever.
Player ratings19 Jan 2032
Nobody could get near Bill Payne
Successful dribbles: 23. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Squad12 Jan 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 108 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market12 Jan 2032
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Market12 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Bill Payne in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad12 Jan 2032
Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Dane Sutton 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.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Match5 Jan 2032
3 points, and a fixture list that is running out. The mathematics are not yet cruel, but they are no longer kind.
Match3 Jan 2032
A 0‑5 beating by Auckland City was the sort of result that empties a stadium long before the final whistle.
Squad5 Jan 2032
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 115 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
The board have said in public what they had been saying in private. Results between now and the next meeting decide it, and everybody in the building knows the arithmetic.
Market5 Jan 2032
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom5 Jan 2032
The official line will be that it was routine. It was not routine, the timing says so, and every person in that room knows what the next bad result costs.
Squad5 Jan 2032
There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. Waitakere United will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.
Match3 Jan 2032
The run now stands at 5, and the questions being asked around Waitakere United are no longer polite ones.
Market5 Jan 2032
The name of Noah Stamatelopoulos has come up in conversations Waitakere United were not part of. Nothing formal, nothing signed — but nothing about it accidental either.
From our football correspondent
Crisis
The terraces29 Dec 2031
Anger at Waitakere United spills outside the ground
It has stopped being a mood in the stands and started being something organised. Boards can ignore a bad atmosphere for a long time; they cannot ignore this stage of it for very long at all.
Squad29 Dec 2031
There were 11 saves in it, and at least three that had no business being saves at all. The ten outfield players owe him a drink and they know it.
Squad29 Dec 2031
A fracture rules Monty Garbett out for 122 days
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Waitakere United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
Market29 Dec 2031
“I have given everything here and I need a new challenge.” The request is formal, and the relationship will never be quite the same again.
Boardroom29 Dec 2031
Nobody upstairs has said anything, which is the loudest thing they could do. Results buy silence in this game; the account at Waitakere United is running low.
Match27 Dec 2031
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Waitakere United are no longer polite ones.
Squad29 Dec 2031
Bill Payne in a row with a teammate
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Waitakere United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Player ratings29 Dec 2031
Nobody could get near Bill Payne
Successful dribbles: 20. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Match27 Dec 2031
Two or more conceded in each of the last 4 matches. It is not one mistake repeating itself, which would be the easier thing to fix; it is a different one every week.