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1995
BARBARA COX
Barbara Cox did not set out to be a soccer pioneer. She did not set out to be a player at all, but was nominated for a place by husband Roy Cox, who then also went on to take the national team.
Twenty years later, she has stopped her playing, coaching and administrating to do university work. In that time she has played in and coached many top sides, played in Auckland championship teams, winning Auckland teams and the national side.
Soccer became a family sport with two daughters as well, and Barbara has accepted all of soccer’s challenges, including the first and major one, getting to know how to play the game.
In 1987 she became the first female holder of an NZFA Senior Coaching Badge and was, in 1991, named as Auckland Coach of the Year.
With Eden, she embarked on a tour of Canada, America and Ireland to end her active career, for the meantime. There were other tours, notably to Sweden to win the Dana Cup with a team of talented young girls. That 1990 tour was one of the highlights of her career, but no more so than the championship wins with Eden and Mt. Wellington.
Her time in the game corresponds with that of the
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Auckland Women’s Football Association, now incorporated with the Auckland Football Association.
Auckland won their first national title in 1981, and has enjoyed much success since.
On the international front, New Zealand has made great progress with success in the Asian Cup in 1975, and, although she was not in the team, the Oceania Cup win in 1983. There were also three series in Taiwan.
Barbara was also the co-producer of the technical report for the FIFA Under-17 series.
In 1988 Eden asked her to coach a boys’ Under-12 side, and a coaching course for the club coaches, then become the Junior Director of Coaching in the following year. This pushed her into the Centres of Excellence, as Director of GRE Central in 1991 and 1992.
Always a thinker, Barbara has switched to psychology. Soccer fans, particularly those of the women’s game, are hoping that she will bring her thinking and energy back to the sport, the game she was press-ganged into twenty years ago and has seen rise to prominence.
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GWYN EVANS
Gwyn Evans has a place in soccer as a player, coach and administrator. After a career as a professional player for ten years with Crystal Palace and as a school teacher, added to considerable basketball skill, Gwyn came to Christchurch in 1963.
The tall defender, towering above all opponents, took the side to the Chatham Cup Final in 1967, losing to Ken Armstrong’s North Shore. He was the centre of the growth of the Christchurch United club at the start of the National League in 1970. He was part of an organisation which, along with Blockhouse Bay, set the standards for league teams to follow. Later, he coached Nelson.
When soccer moved to a more streamlined administration, he was appointed New Zealand soccer’s secretary-general and helped move the game into the
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modern era off the pitch. His ability to write the correct letter, in the best possible way, was legendary.
In the World Cup campaign, Gwyn was the chancellor of the exchequer, running the travel and expenses as only he could. After the World Cup, when the NZFA moved to Auckland, it was Gwyn who helped make the move so successful.
One of his extra claims to fame was to produce son Ceri Evans, a medical doctor and soccer’s first Rhodes Scholar who, while in the United Kingdom, combined to become a professional soccer player and stay as All White captain.
Gwyn battled with illness in the past few years and lived on Waiheke Island after retiring from soccer administration. He died in 2000.
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KEVIN FALLON
When a Kevin Fallon puppet appeared on television it was the sign that he was the most well-known New Zealand soccer person of all time.
Famous for his shock of black hair, beetling brows and his intolerance of idiots, Fallon was famous in the game well before the World Cup campaigns which set him apart. His fame has come from his fierce style and his determination to make sure that his standards are those of his teams, or his coaches and charges.
From Yorkshire, Kevin came to New Zealand in 1972 from a soccer career which saw him play for Rotherham United, Sligo Rovers and Bournemouth. Persuaded by Alan Vest, he came to Gisborne to play and ended up as the youngest coach in the National League when he took over the side in 1974. It was a magical year, with the league title and a Chatham Cup final. His regrets are based on the knee injury which cancelled out his international aspirations in those early Gisborne days.
Five years later, after spells at Hamilton and Nelson (where he won the Cup and was in the final again the next year), he was back at Gisborne, to get the side back
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into the League.
When Fallon joined John Adshead, initially thinking that he had been recalled as a defender, at the start of the successful World Cup campaign in 1980, he took with hi m Grant Turner, Keith Mackay and John Hill from his Gisborne side. He assisted with a great win over Mexico, and brought a fierce determination and physical regime to the squad. After Spain he was All White coach, as well as having coaching spells at North Shore and Mt. Maunganui.
Kevin Fallon has done wonders with the Schools of Excellence, creating the new breed of Kiwi soccer players of the future. His drive and determination often meant early morning sessions before school for many lads who shared his dream. He is now Oceania’s FIFA coach, a respected and dedicated man who has made a difference.
Three times he has been named as personality of the year or the person who has done most for the game. His contribution to the game in New Zealand is as memorable as fellow Yorkshireman Ken Armstrong.
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BERT ORMOND
For most soccer fans, the first memory of Bert Ormond was of a fabulous dribbler with the ball, charging at defences in the colours’ of Gisborne’s Eastern Union. He went there in 1961, lured by Ron Johnstone and the address, Ormond Road.
From Falkirk, he was the younger brother of Willie, one of the Famous Five Hibernian players who also played for Scotland. Willie went on to manage Scotland at the World Cup in 1974. Bert took his skills to Gisborne where so many notable overseas players had their start in this country.
Bert moved to Auckland, where he was a player and player-coach at Blockhouse Bay for fifteen seasons, charming everyone with his endless tales and his endless skills. His sons Ian and Duncan were also fine players, and Bert took the Bay to the National League, after a close decision over North Shore at the end of 1969.
The rest is soccer history as Bert and his Blockhouse Bay boys won the first National League and the
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Chatham Cup, after a replay, always hitting the sporting headlines, with Bert also running his weekly column in the Sunday News for seventeen years.
Bert’s approach to the game and the media made him a favourite and lifted the profile of the game. His sense of humour was unsurpassed.
He and Ian set a record by both being selected in the same Auckland representative team, and both sons went on to play for New Zealand, with many arguing that Ian was the most skilful player ever. Bert played twenty-one times for New Zealand, and was captain during the rugged tour of the world, which seemed to set the game back but was, to many, the turning point where New Zealand players realised that they had to learn a great deal more about the game.
There is more than a family legacy and soccer skill in the Bert Ormond career. It is the story of the changing face of soccer in this country.
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BRIAN TURNER
Brian Turner went to England in 1967 at the age of seventeen, following the recommendation of the late Ken Armstrong, after playing for New Zealand on a tour of Asia. He started off his professional career with half a game, in Chelsea’s top team, against Portsmouth.
At the end of the season, he was shipped off to Portsmouth on a free transfer and was back in the reserves, with eight games for the first team before Frank Blunstone, the manager of the Chelsea youth side, switched to Brentford and asked Brian to play. He played for that side for 99 games and had five seasons in England. At the age of 22 he returned to play for Mt. Wellington in the 1972 season and that was the start of The Mount’s golden years.
Starting as a schoolboy, Brian played an amazing 102 games for New Zealand, the most appearances by any player apart from Steve Sumner, who is three ahead. He played five times for his country before he left Eden, seventy-four when with Mount, one with Chelsea, fifteen with Blacktown in the Australian League and
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seven when he was with Gisborne.
Brian’s appearances for New Zealand cover the period when the game made the most progress of all, from almost the start of the National League to the World Cup Finals in Spain. He was there, holding the ball and taking the punishment, making the space for others in the way he always did. He was in the World Cup campaigns of 1973 and 1977.
The three Chatham Cup final of 1972, eventually lost, was followed by wins in ‘73 and ‘80, with final losses in ‘77 and ‘79. Mount won championship titles in ‘72, ‘74, ‘79 and ‘80, and were second in ‘73, ‘76 and ‘78.
In 1981 and 1982 he missed the honours, as he was playing in Australia. In 1974, 1979 and 1980 he was named as Player of the Year, a feat equalled only by Noel Barkley.
It has been a wonderful soccer life for Brian Turner. He has been coaching in recent years and there is still a place for him in New Zealand soccer in the future.
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