A Football Fern who played in our first ten internationals, between 1975 and 1980, has died on the eve of an event she was very much looking forward to, the FIFA Women's World Cup Finals in her native New Zealand and her country of residence, Australia. Nora Watkins (nee Hetherington) was born in Liverpool in July 1957 and emigrated to New Zealand when she was six. Settling in Wellington, she initially played for Upper Hutt United before switching to Miramar Rangers, for whom she played between 1975 and 1983 before coaching the team in 1985, 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1991. They won pretty much everything on offer during her time with the club. She then coached Petone with great success throughout the 1990s, before relocating to Melbourne, where she worked for Shell for a lengthy period before a three-year stint at Allianz Insurance, then a switch in December 2014 to Club Marine Insurance, for whom she was Chief Operating Officer at the time of her passing. Nora, a long-time Liverpool fan, would have turned 66 a day after the Football Ferns' Women's World Cup Finals clash with the Philippines in her native Wellington. As well as her ten appearances for the national team, for whom she scored twice - against Thailand in the 1975 Asian Cup Final, and against Australia in a 2-2 draw four years later, she coached the national side in a two-match series against Australia in March 1995, the first female coach of the Football Ferns.

Prior to this appointment, she had been assistant coach in eighteen internationals, including New Zealand's three matches at the inaugural FIFA Women's World Cup Finals in China in 1991. Regrettably, this story, which I first posted on both Facebook and Twitter under my name, was plagiarised by the Stuff news organisation with an initial by-line of "Stuff staff reporters". Quotes were later added to it, but the published story included verbatim phrases from this story. At no stage did Stuff request permission of me to use this story or any extracts from it. Further, they made no acknowledgement of the source of the story (me) when publishing it. They are an organisation seriously lacking in integrity, further evidence of which is their pop-up requests for individuals to fund their stories. My advice to you, particularly in light of my experience here - DON'T! This behaviour is further evidence of the pitifully poor standards to which journalism in NZ now stoops. If you ever wondered why I've never worked for a mainstream media outlet, this is one of the reasons. I have standards, and won't lower them in order to work for the likes of these. Instead, I expect others to raise theirs.

Player	Coach
Upper Hutt United	Miramar Rangers (did not coach in 1987 or 1989)
1973 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1985 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
1974 - Wellington WFA Div 1	1986 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
	1988 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
Miramar Rangers	1990 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
1975 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1991 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
1976 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
1977 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	Petone (did not coach in 1997)
1978 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1994 - Central League, Kelly Cup
1979 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1995 - Central League, Kate Sheppard Cup runners-up
1980 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1996 - Central League, Kate Sheppard Cup runners-up
1981 - Wellington WFA Div 1	1998 - Central League, Kate Sheppard Cup runners-up
1982 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup	1999 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
1983 - Wellington WFA Div 1, Kelly Cup
Wellington - 52 games, 7 goals (courtesy Capital Football)	Wellington (did not coach in 1991 or 1993)
1976 - National Tournament, winners	1986 - National Tournament, runners-up
1977 - National Tournament, winners	1987 - National Tournament, runners-up
1978 - National Tournament, winners	1988 - National Tournament, fourth
1979 - National Tournament, winners	1989 - National Tournament, third
1980 - National Tournament, winners	1990 - National Tournament, runners-up
1981 - National Tournament, runners-up	1992 - National Tournament, third
1982 - National Tournament,  winners	1994 - National Tournament, winners
1983 - National Tournament, winners	1995 - National Tournament, third
	1996 - National Tournament, third
New Zealand - 10 caps, 2 goals	New Zealand
1975 - Asian Cup	1989 - Assistant Coach, Oceania Cup (4 matches)
Caps v Hong Kong, Malaysia, Australia, Thailand (1 goal)	1991 - Assistant Coach, Oceania WWC qualifiers (4 matches)
1979 - Trans-Tasman Cup	1991 - Assistant Coach, Australian tour of NZ (3 matches)
Caps v Australia (3 games; 1 goal in first game)	1991 - Assistant Coach, FIFA WWC Finals (3 matches)
1980 - Trans-Tasman Cup runners-up	1994 - Assistant Coach, Oceania WWC qualifiers (4 matches)
Caps v Australia (3 games)	1995 - Coach, NZ tour of Australia (2 matches)