[craig1234564]

I am still in the uk but thinking of moving to new zealand, only i am worried that i would miss the football. Is it easy to get sky tv fitted in new zealand? also are there places open where you can watch it late at night?
Is football played in schools? i have a young son (too young at the moment but for later) If we bought a big garden and fitted a 5 a side goal would the other kids want to play or do they only play rugby?

Any other information on the topic is welcome. cheers.

[gil]

Hi Craig,
We moved in to our rental on a Thursday and had My Sky (Sky +) installed that morning. Hubby says he gets to watch his team more on TV over here than he ever did in UK....
Kids play all sports here, son 10, plays rugby, soccer, basketball and goes bodyboarding, NONE of which he did in UK. There are any amount of soccer clubs, in fact there's one at the other end of our road, and another one about 2 miles away and another one about a mile from there,,,,beginning to get the picture? :D
NZ is sport mad, it doesn't matter what sport; you should see the local Rebel Sports shop (no real equivalent in UK, perhaps JJB Sports?), they sell kit and clothes for rugby, soccer, cricket, basketball, angling, netball, tennis, lawn bowls, camping, surfing, snorkelling, waterskiing, croquet, cycling, triathlon, running, table tennis and that's just the ones I can remember!
So don't worry, there's plenty of sport here,
Good luck,

Gil

[craig1234564]

eastern beach is that near bay of plenty?
maybe some areas of the country are better for soccer than others?

[Kim39]

Craig.

Footie is alive and well down here, but obviously not on the scale of that oval ball game. There are youth leagues as well as adult leagues all over NZ, but bear in mind regarding youth football that as soon as the child hits 13 they then come under the control of the school system(so long as they are in the school team). What i am saying is they aren't allowed, unless they have permission from the schools to take part in youth/adult leagues-you will get 14 and 15 yr olds playing with the adults believe me as i have a 14 yr old maori playing for me who is good and ended up top goalscorer for the club last season.

On the score of footie on the box. Yes all prem/euro games are shown through Sky, and you will get plenty of coverage. Should you decide to view games via your PC there are plenty of sites that cater for this. I have one which i view on a regular basis.....http://www.live-footy.org/ take a look whilst you are back home this weekend and see what you think.

Anyway good luck with it all

Oh yes Gil mentioned Rebel. As much as it does stock plenty of gear, some of the clothing can be a little expensive, along with the footwear, thats if you are looking for your normal Adidas,Nike, etc. But they do have sales on every now and again. One thing i will say, JJB it ain't:wah

Kim

[gil]

Craig,
Eastern Beach is in the suburbs of Auckland, technically Manukau City.
Gil

[craig1234564]

thanks for the information, do you ever go and watch your local new zealand team?

[gil]

Wrong season right now, but OH has plans....;)

[willowshouse]

thanks for the information, do you ever go and watch your local new zealand team?

We've been to the Auckland Knights (formerly the Kings) who were playing in the Australian league.. also been to Waitakere (lovely to sit out at and they have a kid's playground by the side of the pitch) and Auckland City.

The grounds are small with not a lot of facilities but the people who go to watch show their enjoyment of the game and that makes it much more enjoyable for me than a Premiership match. Having said that, the standard of the play is dreadful!

OH watches all the games on Sky and phones his brothers in UK to discuss referees shortcomings etc - so, no change there!

I think in football terms - the world is a fairly small pitch! You'll be fine.

Dawn

[thepiesleys]

As an aside - rebel sports is a lot like Decathlon, although unfortunatly not as cheap.

My son bought a pair of Nike legends in adult size - 9.5 for $50. About £20. In the sales I might add, but there are sales on all the time, everywere. Even rebel.

My son found a football club within days of being here, and although it is off season he has trained every friday since being here. Heavily populated by English I might add. thats in Howick, east Auckland.

There is also a senior 7 a side league that plays every wednesday near me as well. Reminded me of a smaller hackney marshes when I first went down - lots of overweight English blokes running around. :laugh

It is sport mad here, and the one thing that i have noticed that is complety diferent is the amount of lads playing touch rugby instead of footie on the beach, in the park etc. As an egg chaser meself I think that is great.

Pakuranga Rugby club, where I intend playing, is the largest club in the southern hemphispehre, it boasts 10 senior teams. I should scrape a game there. The minis and juniors has something mental like 50 teams. My middle lad is chomping on the bit to get down there come April.

The cricket club in Pakuranga is also huge - not sure of exact sizes but I have heard rumour that again it is one of the largest in the southern hemisphere. Just to give you an idea of the importance of sport over here.

Oh and one last thing, football is taking off by all acounts, the local kids are taking it up in droves as they are moving away from rugby. The Islanders who play rugby app. are massive and a lot of NZ European kids are sick of being beaten up. They do cap the ages in weight up to a certain point mind.

That's my bit over with - hope it helps.

Dan

[wiki]

Following on from the Piesleys - football (or soccer as we kiwis like to call it) has only started to be huge in the past eight years or so.

When I was at high school 1988-1992 we had 500 students (mixed sex) and eight rugby squads across the ages and only ONE soccer team (which tended to double as the hockey team if we were on school exchanges to a school that didn't play soccer - yes, some schools didn't offer football at all)

but each time I've been back to NZ the changes to play soccer or watch the UK leagues has grown. I remember the first time I saw the Premier League results in the Southland Times and being really surprised how big a story they had accompanying it.

A couple of years back I even caught an Oldham Latics game on Sky while I was home...

But the above posters are right: NZ is sports mad, and I think people have found that soccer being slightly less non-contact gives youngsters a different, possibly safer, cauliflower-ear avoiding, decent work-out sport.

Just watch the metatarsals!

[craig1234564]

yes and might improve since australia did well in the worldcup
hopefully new zealand can improve too!

[speckythecky]

For those of you interested (and still in UK) the all whites (NZ football team) will be playing at Wrexham, the racecourse ground, on May 26th as a warm up for the welsh playing a Euro qualifier the following week.

[craig1234564]

do people in new zealand support their local team? or do you get people there supporting man utd liverpool chelsea etc.

[colindp]

I have found most people support UK premiership teams...for instance there are two Tottenham supporters in my office and a fellow Liverpool supporter on the next floor. I am given to understand thet the building holds a number of Man U supporters....well we all have our cross to bear I suppose!! :laugh

[Kim39]

Yes the Kiwi does support the Prem teams, but also there are a few folk i know who support the lesser teams in the Championship. This is more to do with the fact that their immediate family and relatives are from those area's. Ipswich, Leeds, Sunderland,etc.
As for supporting their local team, well that is a matter of opinion. Here in the Waikato region it is represented by Waikato FC who play in the National League which is a summer league. The players then pop off to their respective local teams for the winter league. On the whole the team is pants and sit at the bottom. Standard is what can be only described as below the Conference league, maybe 2-3 rungs lower.

Kim

[incredible hulse]

Unless you're a follower of the premiership you will be disappointed with Sky. They don't show the Championship live games on SKY NZ, so you will be stuck with trying to locate dodgy eastern-european/chinese/skandi web sites streaming the games (at pitiful broadband speeds!), or watching text based forum updates at 3AM, if like me you follow one of those lesser teams (Leeds) getting beat each week. The local leagues are one up from pub football