Marked for Cameron Boxall
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market10 Apr 2028
“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.
Market10 Apr 2028
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Waitakere United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Noah Stamatelopoulos 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
Sam Garbett 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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
“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.
Squad10 Apr 2028
It is never announced and it is entirely visible: the biggest afternoons of the season keep containing him. A press box works this out long before anybody at the club confirms a word of it.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Match17 Nov 2027
A 2‑1 win over WaiBOP United, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
Successful dribbles: 34. Every time he got the ball somebody had to make a decision, and every time the decision was wrong.
Player ratings22 Nov 2027
A debut Callum Smith will not forget — 7.79
There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.79 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Alex Colvey breaks a bone — 48 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 48 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Market22 Nov 2027
Tim Smith hands in a written request
“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.
Market22 Nov 2027
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Waitakere United they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
The terraces22 Nov 2027
There is a particular warmth a ground reserves for a 17-year-old it feels ownership of. Cameron Boxall has it now, and everything he does for the rest of his time here will be measured against the goodwill he was handed for free.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Victor Odhiambo 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.
Squad22 Nov 2027
Deklan Wood 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.