The Waitakere United Sentinel
Market23 Aug 2027
Owen Van Hattum asks to leave Waitakere United
“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.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Real improvement from Deklan Singh at Waitakere United
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Deklan Singh is 20, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Words exchanged at Waitakere United
Francis Wood and a teammate said things this week that will take longer than a week to unsay. It was not about football, and both of them play on Saturday.
Squad23 Aug 2027
Winston Nelson has improved at 25, which nobody expected
Careers are supposed to plateau and then decline, and the players who ignore that are always the ones who were listening on the training ground. 3 points of it, over months, at an age where the direction normally only goes one way.
Squad23 Aug 2027
A row about effort at Waitakere United
Somebody said out loud what several people thought about how hard another man trains, and Ben Kirwan was in the middle of it. The one dressing-room argument that is genuinely about football.
The dugout23 Aug 2027
Deklan Singh gets it from the manager
“Nobody here is above being told.” It was not said with a name attached, but the dressing room can count, and so can everybody who was listening.
In brief
- The dugout Ben Kirwan knocks on the manager’s door
- Market The shop window has Francis Wood in it
- Market Tim Sutton leaves for nothing
- Market Chris Payne leaves for nothing