“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.
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.
“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 The request is on a desk at Hawke's Bay United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
He found out with everybody else, an hour before kick-off, from a sheet of paper on a wall. Nobody at Hawke's Bay United pretended it was anything other than a decision about him.
“I did not go to Auckland City to sit and watch. I want to come back to Hawke's Bay United and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 22 matches say the rest.
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.
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.
A player who expected to start watched it instead. The manager will call it a decision for the team; Liberato De Vries will call it something else in private.
Two goals and a mark of 8.59 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
Player ratings4 Jan 2027
Francis Boxall, 21, plays like he has been here for years — 7.62
A mark of 7.62 means one thing beside a twenty-nine-year-old's name and something else entirely beside a 21-year-old's. Nobody at the ground needed telling which this was.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 21 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Skhanyiso Ncwane 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.
A month is long enough that nobody gets in by accident. Stefan McCowatt is in the division's best eleven for it, which is a quieter compliment than an award and a more reliable one.
The words a physio says slowly. 17 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.
Two goals and a mark of 8.04 to go with them. Strikers are judged on afternoons like this one and remembered for far fewer of them than people imagine.
5 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.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
At 19 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
2 goals before the ground had finished arriving. Canterbury United spent the rest of the afternoon playing a match that had already been decided, and everybody in the stadium knew it.
“I did not go to Auckland City to sit and watch. I want to come back to Hawke's Bay United and fight for my place.” 0 appearances in 14 matches say the rest.
The words a physio says slowly. 87 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.
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 21 he is doing things at this level he could not do at the start of the season, and the coaching staff will tell you exactly which of them.
At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 3 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.
The words a physio says slowly. 108 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.
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.
The words a physio says slowly. 115 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.
Chris Wood was at the centre of it, and by the time it was pulled apart there were three or four others involved. Training grounds are small places and long seasons make them smaller.
“The easiest signature of my career.” Skhanyiso Ncwane and Hawke's Bay United agree another 3 years, and the manager can plan around him rather than about him.
“I was told straight, and I would rather have it straight.” The manager at Hawke's Bay United has been clear about where Joe Reid stands, which is more than many ever get.
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.
Chris Wood 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.
In brief
SquadCallum Lewis asks for a word with the manager