The Team Wellington Gazette
Squad5 Mar 2029
Tempers go at Team Wellington
Willem Ebbinge 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Ruon Tongyik 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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Team Wellington count the cost of losing Michael Payne
32 days, the scan says, and scans are kinder than reality. The fixtures in that window have just become somebody else’s job.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
Kayne Razmovski gets it from the manager
“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.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
When it matters, Nathan Lobo plays
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.
Squad5 Mar 2029
Kayne Razmovski has had enough of the bench
“I did not come here to warm up in front of people.” He is out of contract eventually, he is old enough to count the weeks, and Team Wellington will have to give him a reason to stay or an exit.
Market5 Mar 2029
Still no ink between Team Wellington and Christian Bracco
“We keep meeting, and we keep leaving the room with the same numbers we walked in with.” Another round of talks at Team Wellington, another week without a signature from Christian Bracco.
Market5 Mar 2029
The Jonathan Lawson story refuses to die
It has been denied twice and printed three times, which is the usual arithmetic. Until Jonathan Lawson signs something — a contract at Team Wellington or anywhere else — this column belongs to him.
The dugout5 Mar 2029
Evan Humphries knocks on the manager’s door
“Thirty minutes, door closed, everything said. We shook hands after.” Whatever was in the room stayed in the room, and Evan Humphries trained the next morning like a man with less to carry.
In brief
- The dugout The manager makes Joe Nelson a promise
- Loan watch Adam Khan's loan at Waitakere United nearly up
- Boardroom Team Wellington board back the manager