Marked for Max Bailey
From our football correspondent
Steady
Market13 Jul 2043
Jamie Flynn 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 Lautoka can pretend not to have heard.
Squad13 Jul 2043
Daniel Moldovan 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.
Boardroom13 Jul 2043
The Lautoka debt reaches $12.8M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Boardroom13 Jul 2043
110% of the income goes out in wages at Lautoka
Every club in football pays most of what it earns to its players. Paying nearly all of it is a different arrangement, and it has ended the same way every time somebody has tried it.
Squad13 Jul 2043
Stefan Brown pulls a muscle — 15 days out
The injury that keeps coming back, keeps being rushed back from, and quietly costs more careers than the dramatic ones. 15 days is the estimate; the honest figure depends on whether anybody is patient.
Squad13 Jul 2043
When it matters, Jack Murphy 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.
Back issues
From our football correspondent
Steady
Squad27 Oct 2042
Jackson Griffin 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.
Squad27 Oct 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lautoka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom27 Oct 2042
No signings allowed at Lautoka
The manager may talk to whoever he likes and may pay nobody. A squad survives a window like this by borrowing, by promoting, and by hoping the injuries land somewhere else.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match27 Aug 2042
Cup progress for Lautoka
A 4‑2 win over Navua, a place in the next round, and the quiet arithmetic every supporter does on the walk home: how many more until a final?
Squad1 Sep 2042
The match ball belongs to Jarrod Edwards, whose 3 goals turned a difficult afternoon into a procession.
Squad1 Sep 2042
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.
Market1 Sep 2042
“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 Lautoka, and it is not being withdrawn.
Match27 Aug 2042
6 goals as Lautoka and Navua go for it
Defending was optional and nobody took up the option. 6 goals between Lautoka and Navua, and not one of the people who paid to be there will ask for the money back.
Player ratings1 Sep 2042
Jarrod Edwards was on a different afternoon to everybody else
9.38. There are performances a supporter describes to somebody who was not there and cannot quite convey; this was one, and the number does not help either.
Squad1 Sep 2042
Peter Antoniou 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.
The terraces1 Sep 2042
At 23 he is being sung about by people twice his age, which is an affection a signing has to earn over years and a local kid gets for turning up. It is also the hardest thing in football to live up to.
Boardroom1 Sep 2042
Lautoka cannot sign anybody
The embargo bars a fee being paid for a player, whatever the manager thinks the squad needs. Every rumour printed about this club between now and its lifting is a rumour about a deal that cannot happen.
In brief
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Player ratings
Jackson Griffin was on a different afternoon to everybody else
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Boardroom
Wages eat 100% of everything Lautoka earn
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Market
The Tristan Hill conversation is coming
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Match3 Feb 2042
Lautoka up to position 3
33 points on the board and a place in the leading group. Nobody at the ground is saying the word out loud yet.
Market3 Feb 2042
Shane Fisher 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 Lautoka can pretend not to have heard.
Market3 Feb 2042
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lautoka they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Boardroom3 Feb 2042
The owner puts $150.5K into Lautoka
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad3 Feb 2042
Peter Antoniou 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.
Market3 Feb 2042
Both sides expect a conversation in the coming days. Lautoka will name a price, and everything after that is arithmetic.
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Market27 Jan 2042
Dylan Hall 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 Lautoka can pretend not to have heard.
Squad27 Jan 2042
“I have given this everything, but my family is not here and neither am I, not really.” A footballer can be coached out of bad form. Nobody has ever been coached out of this, and Lautoka know it.
Market27 Jan 2042
Add another name to the list: Tailevu Naitasiri have asked the question everybody in the game has been asking about Shane Fisher. The answer from Lautoka has not changed — yet.
Squad27 Jan 2042
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lautoka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Boardroom27 Jan 2042
The Lautoka debt reaches $10.5M
Football clubs borrow; that is not the story. Borrowing more than the facility allows is, because from here it is the owner's money or somebody else's decision, and neither of those belongs to the board.
Squad27 Jan 2042
Jason Shaw has become a man the manager trusts
Nobody at Lautoka will say this on the record and the team sheets have been saying it for weeks. There is a small group in every squad who get picked when the fixture is difficult, and he has joined it.
In brief
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Squad
The manager makes an example of Max Bailey
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Boardroom
Lautoka keep producing them
From our football correspondent
Upbeat
Squad9 Dec 2041
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jackson Griffin
55 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lautoka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Match9 Dec 2041
Lautoka are in among the leaders
Position 3 and 33 points on the board. Nobody at the ground will say the word out loud yet, and everybody at the ground is thinking it.
Market9 Dec 2041
“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.
Market9 Dec 2041
Terms are settled between the clubs and the rest is paperwork and a photograph. Around Lautoka they have already started talking about him in the past tense.
Squad9 Dec 2041
It was not about football and everybody who saw it knows that. Two men who have to play together on Saturday said things at Lautoka this week that will take longer than a week to unsay.
Squad9 Dec 2041
Bryce Nelson 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
Upbeat
Squad4 Nov 2041
A knee injury of the worst kind for Jackson Griffin
90 days on the estimate, and a long, private, unglamorous year of a rehabilitation nobody watches. Lautoka lose a footballer; he loses considerably more than a season.
Market4 Nov 2041
“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.
Squad4 Nov 2041
216 appearances across 10 seasons in one shirt. Nobody builds a career like that on purpose any more; it happens to a certain kind of footballer at a certain kind of club.
Market4 Nov 2041
Only the photograph left for Ben Clark
Fee agreed, terms agreed, medical booked. Ben Clark will be somebody else’s player by the weekend, and around Lautoka the goodbyes have quietly begun.
Boardroom4 Nov 2041
The owner puts $151.2K into Lautoka
This is money that keeps the lights on rather than money that buys a centre-half, and the difference is the whole story. A club funded by its owner rather than by its football has exactly one conversation left ahead of it.
Squad4 Nov 2041
Peter Antoniou 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.