Marked for Alex Colvey
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad19 Jul 2027
A knee injury of the worst kind for Chris Garbett
15 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Waitakere United lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market19 Jul 2027
The offer from WaiBOP United for Stefan Fenton was heard out and sent back the same day. First bids are rarely meant to succeed; they are meant to find out how loudly the door closes.
Squad19 Jul 2027
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Oliver Reid and Waitakere United agree another 2 years.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market7 Jun 2027
“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.
Market7 Jun 2027
The offer was not close and it was refused without much discussion. Whether the second one is refused as quickly is another matter.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Clayton Lewis is a better footballer than he was
Not a run of form — an actual step up, held for months. At 20 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Bill Cacace 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Chris Reid has improved at 24, 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.
Squad7 Jun 2027
Alex Colvey 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.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I was told what my role would be, and I signed on that basis. It has not happened.” A grievance with a date attached is the hardest kind to settle.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Bill Cacace, 34, rolls back the years — 7.82
There is an age at which every good afternoon gets described as a throwback, which is unfair and also accurate. 7.82 at 34, and nobody on the pitch was better.
Player ratings1 Feb 2027
Successful dribbles: 24. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Bill Cacace 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.
Squad1 Feb 2027
“I never wanted to be anywhere else. There is unfinished business here.” Tim Nelson commits to Waitakere United for another 1 years.
Squad1 Feb 2027
Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Alex Colvey 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.
Market1 Feb 2027
Sam Smith returns from a loan that gave him nothing
0 appearances and 0 goals is not a season, it is a year somebody has lost. Whether that is his fault, the borrowing club's or the people who arranged it is the argument the next few weeks will have.
Market1 Feb 2027
The window shut and Joe Tuiloma is still in the building
Waitakere United spent a month trying to move him and nobody rang back. He trains with a squad that has told him where he stands, and both sides start counting down to the next one.