Marked for Stephen Roberts
From our football correspondent
Crisis
Market14 Dec 2026
“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 The request is on a desk at Waitakere United, and it is not being withdrawn.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Sanele Radebe 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.
Squad14 Dec 2026
Stefan Smith 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Match7 Dec 2026
Position 5, 6 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.
Market7 Dec 2026
“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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 7 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Words at Waitakere United training over how hard people work
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Sanele Radebe 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
Ben Lewis 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.
Squad7 Dec 2026
“Some decisions take a long time. This one took ten minutes, and most of that was finding a pen.” Josh Lawrence and Waitakere United agree another 3 years.
From our football correspondent
Uneasy
Squad9 Nov 2026
Chris Nelson breaks a bone — 40 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 40 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Match9 Nov 2026
Position 7, 1 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.
Market9 Nov 2026
“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.
Match7 Nov 2026
The run now stands at 4, and the questions being asked around Waitakere United are no longer polite ones.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Deklan Reid 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 ratings9 Nov 2026
Successful dribbles: 21. There is a particular sort of despair on a full-back's face by the seventieth minute, and it was on display.
Loan watch9 Nov 2026
“I am grateful for the games, but I did not become a footballer to be somebody else's spare part.” He wants to be at Waitakere United, and 0 appearances in 9 say he has earned the hearing.
Squad9 Nov 2026
The manager makes an example of Deklan Reid
“If you cannot run for the shirt, somebody else will wear it.” No name was used and none was needed; every player in that room knew who it was for.
Squad9 Nov 2026
Owen Reid 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
Steady
Squad12 Oct 2026
A knee injury of the worst kind for Monty Barbarouses
22 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.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Chris Nelson breaks a bone — 68 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 68 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad12 Oct 2026
Ben 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.
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad21 Sep 2026
Chris Nelson breaks a bone — 89 days out
Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 89 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Michael Boxall is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.
Squad21 Sep 2026
Deklan Reid 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.