1‑4 to Hawke's Bay United, and it was every bit as bad as the number suggests. There are defeats you argue about and defeats you apologise for; this was the second kind.
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Noah Nelson will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Canterbury United the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Bill Wood 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Bill 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.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
In brief
SquadAlex Smith has become a man the manager trusts
Bones knit. That is the one merciful thing about this injury and the reason Canterbury United will talk about it more openly than they would about a knee. He will be back, and roughly when they say.
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Canterbury United this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Somebody said out loud what several people had been thinking. Chris McCowatt 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.