The Star: October 21, 2021

The Star Thursday October 21 2021
26
SPORT
Latest Canterbury news at starnews.co.nz
Resurgent club’s ‘fairytale’ season
A year ago Selwyn
United were in danger
of being relegated from
the Mainland Football
premiership. The club’s
resilience was tested again
before a ground-breaking
campaign culminated
in qualification for the
National League. Chris
Barclay details the
organisation’s steady
development to a
competitive force in one
of the province’s fastestgrowing
areas
IT WASN’T a goal of the month
contender, but it made Selwyn
United’s year.
Substitute Ollie Sims’ messy
winner at Saxton Field won’t
be going viral, yet the toe-poke
will live long in the memory of
first team players, support staff,
management and fans.
Take head coach and director
of football Chris Brown, who
thought a Luke Blackie 87thminute
equaliser was scant consolation
from the trip to Nelson
Suburbs on October 2.
“It was a crazy 30 seconds really.
We managed to win the ball
back. Will Fairley crossed the ball
in, it bounced off two or three
people and it fell to Ollie who
poked it home. Everyone was off
the scale in terms of happiness
and excitedness,” Brown said.
Sims, who was first coached by
Brown as a 13-year-old, secured
a place in the club’s folklore as
Selwyn United claimed the Southern
League’s final berth
for the revamped National League
by a point through a 2-1 victory.
Three other clubs were in
the qualification frame during
a fluctuating final round, but
once Christchurch United lost
to Dunedin’s South City Royals
with 10 minutes left on the
clock in Nelson, Selwyn United
somehow engineered their latest
remarkable comeback.
In last year’s Mainland
Football premiership, Selwyn
United were in danger of
relegation until a 2-1 win on
the final afternoon condemned
Western to the second-tier
championship.
Making the eight-team Southern
League, the prerequisite for
the upcoming National League,
was also left late with an 85thminute
save from veteran shot
– and in this case penalty – stopper
Pieter-taco Bierema necessary
to protect the 2-0 margin
required to advance at Nomad
United’s expense.
Brown savours those wins,
though he nominated a 4-2
premiership defeat to Cashmere
Technical in May – after Selwyn
United led 2-0 with eight minutes
to play – as the cornerstone
of this campaign, the launching
pad for a six-game unbeaten
sequence in the premiership.
“That game was the catalyst for
the boys going ‘actually we’re not
far off’, we’d pushed them all the
way.”
Team spirit was never an issue
– 95 per cent of the squad that
diced with relegation in 2020
reported for pre-season training,
dedication synonymous with
the rise of the club covering one
of Canterbury’s fastest-growing
areas.
An amalgamation of the
Rolleston and Ellesmere clubs in
2013, Selwyn United toiled five
years to gain promotion to the
premiership.
Brown and fellow Englishman
Lee Padmore, who attended
the fabled Crewe Alexandria
football academy, have been
involved with Selwyn United
from the outset after coaching in
Australia.
“It’s been a rollercoaster ride
but it’s been a fun one. Last year
was a tough year, this one has
been kind of a fairytale story,”
Brown said.
Now Mainland Football’s
director of football, Padmore was
the original head coach when
the joint venture was based at
Rolleston’s quaint Brookside Park.
Although his career path has
taken him to town, Padmore’s
legacy is a fixture at Foster Park,
according to Selwyn United
president Stan de Rooy.
“Lee was the driving force in
the early years of the club, setting
the tone for Selwyn’s footballing
culture and playing philosophy.
He had the drive to ensure players
have a continuous pathway in
their footballing development,”
he said.
Brown, a college mate of
Padmore when they studied in
Leeds, took the wheel of the first
team in 2019, and ironically the
Southern Motorway development
has made life easier for the
coach, and club.
“The motorway has been the
biggest thing. People realise you
can get out (to Rolleston) and
back in 10-15 minutes. Once
you’re onto the motorway it’s a
quick route,” Brown said.
Accessibility – and National
League qualification – has made
the club more attractive, though
Brown said the nurturing of
home grown talent has been a key
building block of the organisation.
Former Rolleston stalwart
Jamie Carrodus has racked up
more than 170 appearances
while at the other end of the
experience spectrum the line-up
that pipped Nelson Suburbs 2-1
featured a trio of 16-year-olds,
who are ideally destined for
professional careers.
Finn Surman, Matt Sheridan
and Jonny Sims have already
headed north to the Wellington
Phoenix academy, losses the
club are content to absorb.
“That’s what we’re about. If
KEY VICTORY: Selwyn United players celebrate qualifying
for the National League after beating Nelson Suburbs with
a late Ollie Sims goal.
PHOTO: DARREN BOOTH
CLUB STALWARTS: Selwyn United director of
football Chris Brown (left) and president Stan
de Rooy reflect on a breakthrough season
for the club’s first team. Selwyn United is
hoping a team will join next year’s women’s
premiership.
PHOTOS: GEOFF SLOAN & KAREN CASEY ​
they’ve got better things to go
to we actually want to make
that happen and push them
on to that,” said de Rooy, who
estimated 90 per cent of the clubs
players were aged under-19.
Selwyn’s population boom
should at least ensure the club regenerates
its player stocks, from
the ground up.
“There’s so much building
going on. We’ll probably find the
number of six to 10-year-olds
coming through will be quite
high,” Brown said.
Membership revolves around
the 1200 mark; de Rooy expects
that number to jump by 200 or
so in three years.
The club fields more than 90
teams, from First Kicks Football
to the Masters side that headed
to Blenheim for a tournament
last week. Hopefully, a team
will join next year’s women’s
premiership.
“The prediction is with current
growth we’d be looking at 110
teams in 2028,” de Rooy said.
Bigger isn’t necessarily better
– superclub Cashmere Technical
can beg to differ – so de Rooy
was wary about expansion with
the Foster Park headquarters at
capacity in spite of sporting 15
grounds.
The club lost one of six floodlit
pitches to hockey, but as compensation
the district council
will turn the No 1 field from
grass to artificial turf.
A playing surface able to handle
an increased workload is an
off-field triumph for a club which
also has hubs in Darfield, West
Melton, Leeston and Lincoln.
The artificial turf installation
is on track for next season, other
goals have been fulfilled ahead of
schedule.
“We wanted to be a solid
(premiership) team and not in
the relegation zone all the time
so we’ve actually reached the
National League a lot earlier
than we thought we would,” de
Rooy said.
“We just wanted to keep improving
and keep building a stable,
well-recognised club within
Canterbury that performs well
and the first team is only a small
portion of our club, we need to
remember our youngsters and all
the other teams.
“Our club is always based on
growing our own talent,” he said,
pinning dominant centre-back
Mitchell Cockburn as a poster
boy for that process.’’
However, making the National
League, which is scheduled to
start next month providing four
Auckland clubs are able to participate,
could create a selection
quandary.
“If we get players approaching
us we’re going to have to be very
balanced,” de Rooy said.
“The one thing we don’t want
to do as a club is end up with an
environment where the younger
players coming through that are
striving to work hard to get into
that first team are then getting
getting pipped at the post by
people just walking in, people
that may not be committed to
the club, they just want to play
for a team that’s doing well.”
Sponsors, meanwhile, are welcome
to state their case.
“We’re talking to another big
sponsor that approached us after
we made the National League.
It’s an area we really need to
push because in Selwyn we can
only get grant money from pubs
that have pokies, and there’s not
many in the area,” de Rooy said.
“That’s where the teams in
town have a big advantage
over us and of course you’ve
got clubs like Cash-Tech and
Halswell that have got money
from way back.
“I’m not saying they’re sitting
on pots of gold but they’ve got
that infrastructure from way
back, they’ve got old members
that have got their own businesses
that are potentially funding
some of that stuff.
“As a fledgling club, it’s an area
we need to pick up on. What
value can we give to them?
“Certainly the National League
gives them a little bit. Ollie’s goal
might have great ramifications
down the track.”