The winning team!

 

Champions!!!

WE WON!! We are promoted to Mainland League for 2007! We were so pumped yesterday as we beat Avon 3-1 in the home leg of our promotion/relegation series. Last Friday we travelled down to Christchurch again for the first game against Avon on Saturday which we lost 0-1. Their ground was bumpy and very small and there was a very strong wind. Really hard to play on. We had a lot of chances early that hit the post or got cleared off the line. I only played about 4 mins at the end. Yesterday was another tight, close game. Battram scored an absolute stunner against the run of play about 30 mins into the game so it was 1-0 at half time. Batty scored again not long into the second half so we led 2-0 which was enough for us to win as last weeks goal counted for them. Then they scored off a corner--the same way they scored their goal in Christchurch. 2-1 and looking like extra time. I got subbed on for Batty with about 20 mins to go and was really hopin to score the winner!! I put in a good cross to Mike Fifi that went just over his head in front of goal. Then in the 90th min, Fifi chased a ball and managed to cross it back from right on the line across the keeper and Jimmy Lattimore somehow deflected it in as he was diving across the goal! We were ecstatic and after a long 2 mins of injury time we all screamed and jumped and hugged and went crazy! Their was a big crowd their and they were all yelling for us too. The ground looked awesome, the grass was perfect and smooth and it was a perfect Nelson day! I will post a pic later. We then had a pig on a spit and our prizegiving and kept celebrating into the nite! Its been a huge year in our club and we have made history by challenging for this and winning the promotion. There is now 2 teams from Nelson in this league and 6 from Christchurch. I have loved playing in this team and although havent got much game time lately its still been an incredible journey and yesterday felt so good to get out there to play firstly and then to win!

So its been a pretty busy month!! Last Sunday I also moved out of Teapot Valley Camp and am now living with my uncle and aunty again. Its nice to be in a house again and have meals cooked! I plan to live here for the next 3 months.

The week in review

Last Monday at 6:15 I got picked up for work and we drove to Golden Bay (90 mins) to work on a house at Pohara Beach. The owner has a bach (cottage) there so we stayed over. It was a fun job to work on. I cooked up dinner for everyone on Monday nite and also cooked panckaes for breakfast Tuesday. I came back home for soccer training Tues nite and went back to Golden Bay Wednesday morning. Did 2 more long days coming back for training again Thursday night.6:20 friday morning Clint and Alice picked me and took me to the airport. All the computers were down so check in was done manually meaning delays but my friend Anna made me a free chai latte at the cafe and I managed to get a direct flight to Auckland rather than stopping in Wellington. Had a nice flight up. Got a shuttle into Auckland City where we had a hotel booked. Met Kate and Mark there. The lady in reception told us it was 1.5 - 2 stars!!! It was really disgusting. Anyway we got changed and then a 10 minute walk up the street got us to St Pauls church. Cam and Chloe were married in a simple ceremony at 1:30pm and then we celebrated with champagne and wedding cake. A few hours break and then at 5:30 we went to Mantells- a cool venue in Mt Eden where we had the most sumptuous meal! The salmon and beef were so nice. Some great speeches were made-Gapesy as best man told some hilarious stories and read an email that Cam had written which was priceless!! "We are soo cool"!! Back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Saturday 9:15am arise and try out the shower. Got face scalded as cold water came and went.

9:45am Mum and Dad picked me up and we went to Parnell for breakfast to celebrate mums birthday. Happy Birthday Mum!! My sister and her husband and my niece and nephew joined us too.

11:30am Mum and Dad took me to the airport.

1pm Flight to Christhchurch. Fell asleep.

2:30pm Stew met me at the airport and took me the team motel.

4pm Light training run at St Bedes School. freezing cold--about 10 deg Celsius.

8pm Dinner at a local restaurant. Buffet all you can eat!

11pm lights out

Sunday sleep in and then rise and relax

11am check out of motel and drive to English Park. Watch some of the curtainraiser.

1pm our game kicked off and Mike fiff scored inside 1 minute!! 2 goals in the first 10 mins and 3 by halftime. I only got to play the last 8 mins but almost scored when I got the ball past the keeper only to have a defender clear it off the line. We won 3-1 meaning we sang in the showers and were very happy! After food and speeches we had a long slow ride home in the vans arriving home about 11:30pm very tired but after a fun successful weekend. But before bed I managed to watch a replay of Maria Sharapova win the US Open.

2 more sleeps to get my licence back and looking forward to our next soccer game--back in Christchurch again on Saturday.

Springtime

Well I haven't written much on here lately--maybe thats a change I should make! Today was hot! Even got the aircon on in our smoko room on the building site at lunchtime. Our building is going pretty slow due to an engineer interfering but it should be speeding up next week. We are building a pretty big warehouse which will be divided up into many storage units of varying sizes. It will be known as Storageworld! Next week we will spend 2 days in Golden Bay working on a real nice beach house that the company is also building. I don't love my job but thankfully I don't hate it either! It is a means to an end. I am still looking into camping options in the USA. Tomorrow is the first playoff game against Burnside from Christchurch. I have been on the bench the last few games and it looks like that will continue. I have way more speed and fitness than our 2 starting wingers but my ball control is not always as good. Our coach has put a big emphasis this year on speed and getting into the corners and this is not happening. But hopefully I'll get some decent gametime and maybe an injury or something will give me an opening to get my spot back. Only 12 days till i get my licence back!!