Michael Payne

Striker - WaiBOP United
27 Sep 2027
Monday
Process
Overview Personal Contract News 2 Transfers Relations Events 37 Awards Matches History

Marked for Michael Payne

23 Edition

The WaiBOP United Gazette

4 Jan 2027
From our football correspondent Uneasy

Match4 Jan 2027

WaiBOP United are in real trouble now

Position 7, 4 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.

The terraces4 Jan 2027

The mood at WaiBOP United has turned into something else

Supporters who sing when it goes badly are supporters. Supporters who gather afterwards are a problem, and everybody inside the building knows which of the two this now is.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Joe McCowatt breaks a bone — 24 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 24 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Market4 Jan 2027

Cameron Just puts it in writing

“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 The request is on a desk at WaiBOP United, and it is not being withdrawn.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Alex Boxall is named among the best

There are footballers who have a good season and footballers a season is remembered for, and the second kind get their names read out in a hall in the summer. WaiBOP United will be quietly delighted and privately nervous.

Squad4 Jan 2027

Chris Rufer keeps the receipts

“I remember the meeting. I remember exactly what was promised in it.” WaiBOP United may remember it differently, which is precisely the problem.

In brief

Back issues
12 Edition

The WaiBOP United Gazette

19 Oct 2026
From our football correspondent Crisis

Player ratings19 Oct 2026

A debut Sam Nelson will not forget — 7.48

There is exactly one of these per career and it does not usually go like this. 1 on the scoresheet, 7.48 beside the name, and a crowd that had never seen him before chanting it by the end.

Squad19 Oct 2026

Joe McCowatt breaks a bone — 101 days out

Brutal, unambiguous and, for all the horror of the moment, usually less career-shaped than the ligament everybody fears more. 101 days, a clean timeline, and a return date somebody can actually plan around.

Squad19 Oct 2026

Alex Boxall keeps WaiBOP United in it on his own

Some afternoons a goalkeeper is the team. 6 saves, several of them the sort nobody expects to see stopped, and a scoreline that flatters everybody in front of him.

Squad19 Oct 2026

Real improvement from Jai Just at WaiBOP United

Form comes and goes; this has not gone. Jai Just is 21, and the version of him training now would not have got into the side he was in a year ago.

Market19 Oct 2026

Cameron Just puts it in writing

“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 WaiBOP United, and it is not being withdrawn.

Squad19 Oct 2026

A late step up for Clayton Van Hattum

At 27 the improving is meant to be over. It is not: 4 points better than the mark taken at the start of the year, which is the sort of thing that happens to players who take the boring parts of the job seriously.

Boardroom19 Oct 2026

Graduation day at WaiBOP United

5 boys move up, and somewhere in the building the people who coached them at twelve are quietly having the best morning of their working year. Nothing about this shows up in a result and it is why the academy exists.

Match17 Oct 2026

A bad afternoon for WaiBOP United against Hawke's Bay United

1‑2 to Hawke's Bay United, and no complaints worth printing. The performance asked for nothing more than it got.

Market19 Oct 2026

One of our own: Tommy Singh joins the WaiBOP United first team

Clubs spend fortunes looking for players and occasionally find one down the corridor. Tommy Singh is that, and the reception he gets on his first appearance will be different in kind from the one any signing receives.

In brief