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2003
"One Game At A Time" For Long-Time SWANZ Star
by Jeremy Ruane
 If New Zealand Soccer’s initial media release regarding the SWANZ tour of Texas is to be believed, these matches, and the upcoming Oceania Women’s World Cup qualifying series in Canberra in April, are likely to mark the last games in the illustrious international career of Terry McCahill.According to the thirty-six-cap campaigner’s script, however, the end of her SWANZ career is nowhere near in sight - far from it, in fact.
"I still love playing", says the thirty-two-year-old defender, "be it for Lynn-Avon United, Auckland or the SWANZ. And while I continue to get as much pleasure from the game now as I did when I first started playing, I’ve no intention of hanging up my boots".
And nor should she. For McCahill has spent half her life playing the beautiful game, first appearing at senior level in 1987, as a young reserve in the all-conquering Eden squad which dominated the Auckland women’s soccer scene that season, its plethora of SWANZ internationals - including, in Donna Baker, Monique Van de Elzen, Wendy Sharpe, Debbie Pullen and Michele Cox, arguably the most talented forward line in the history of New Zealand women’s soccer - scoring goals for fun against all-comers en route to a clean sweep of the silverware that year.
One of the staggering 194 goals - from just twenty-three matches - scored by "The Legends" that season emanated from Terry, and was the first of 58 she has amassed at club level to date, the bulk of which have been scored for the team of which she was a founding member.
After another five seasons at Eden, including another "Grand Slam" campaign in 1991, McCahill moved to Avondale United, as they were then known, for the 1993 season, and quickly became the defensive rock upon which a women’s soccer dynasty has been built.
In the ten seasons which have followed, Lynn-Avon United, as they became known following the merger of the Avondale and Lynndale clubs, have clocked up a veritable feast of honours on the local women’s soccer scene:
Northern Premier Women’s League:
Winners seven times; runners-up three times
Auckland Women’s Knockout Shield:
Winners three times; runners-up four times
Auckland Champion-of-Champions:
Winners twice
National Women’s Knockout Cup:
Winners three times; runners-up once
 Put another way, Lynn-Avon’s ever-reliable captain has collected more winners’ medals in her career to date than most players of either gender are ever likely to see in a lifetime. And that’s only at club level!For McCahill has garnered yet more silverware while wearing the blue-and-white of her Auckland province over the years, something she has done 89 times to date, with many of those appearances seeing her sporting the captain’s armband.
Eight National Tournament titles have been won by Auckland since her debut in 1989, as well as the inaugural National Women’s Soccer League, which the "A Team" won last year. And you can rest assured the scorer of eleven goals for her province would love to add a couple more National League titles to her already impressive footballing CV in the near future, not to mention become just the fourth centurion in Auckland’s illustrious thirty-season history.
Individual honours for Terry have also graced the McCahill family’s sizable trophy room - there’s no truth to the rumour that the mantelpiece collapsed
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 under the weight of all her winners’ medals, not to mention the numerous rugby, racing and softball honours garnered by one of Auckland’s most successful sporting families over many years!!She was named Auckland Sportswoman of the Year in 1989 and 1994, and Auckland’s Player of the Year in 1993 and last season, 2002 - and a very popular winner she was at that!
So what’s the secret to all this success? "I just take it a game at a time, and take every opportunity I can both to improve my game and gain as much pleasure as I can from it, and hope that the combination gets me through to the top honours".
Along with the ever-present support of her mum - Terry’s biggest fan, who rarely misses a game in which her daughter plays, it’s clearly a recipe for success from which she continues to benefit, with much-prized leadership skills and experiences other rewards she has gained from the game she loves, rewards which, given the raft of inexperienced players in the SWANZ ranks at present, the national team can ill afford to discard in the short-term future.
McCahill is already passing on some of these experiences to the likes of Melissa Ray, Rachel Doody and Hayley Moorwood, three of her Lynn-Avon and Auckland team-mates who will, along with five other newcomers, make their SWANZ debuts on the current tour.
If they follow the advice given them by Auckland’s reigning Women’s Player of the Year and Lynn-Avon’s hard-working club secretary, it will stand them all in good stead for a successful career at senior level. Their wide-eyed wonderment reminds McCahill of her own debut in the white shirt of her country, back in 1991.
"Ah, I was young and silly then!!", she chuckles. "New Zealand had already qualified for that year’s Women’s World Cup Finals in China, and Australia came across to provide us with three games against international opposition prior to our departure. I played in the second and third matches, in Wellington and Hamilton.
"Then it was off to China, so I slipped in via the back door, to some extent". McCahill took part in all three of the SWANZ appearances in the inaugural Women’s World Cup Finals, coming off the bench against Denmark before earning starts against Norway and China.
Since then, with the exception of the three matches in the Jayalitha Cup tournament in Madras in 1994, she has been part of every SWANZ line-up, mainly starting, but occasionally off the bench.
But she hasn’t had the chance to add to her thirty-six caps since June 2000, the last time New Zealand’s national women’s soccer team kicked a ball in anger.
While she, like many others, is understandably disappointed at the lack of opportunities the SWANZ have had on the international stage in recent years, the prospect of helping New Zealand return to women’s soccer’s promised land, China, in September this year is one which has bolstered her indomitable enthusiasm of late.
"I’m looking forward to getting back to playing on the international stage again", McCahill said before the SWANZ departure on their nine-match itinerary. "Not only the chance of playing, but getting together with the players again, and re-enforcing the camaraderie we’ve established over numerous camps and get-togethers over the last couple of years, all with an eye towards overcoming our Oceania rivals in Canberra in April".
And, dare we mention, proving the contents of a certain media release wrong? While the determination in her eyes and voice betray her true feelings on this subject, the SWANZ stalwart is characteristically polite and up-beat with her reply.
It’s one which has stood her in good stead over a number of years now, and Terry McCahill has the silverware, the leadership qualities and the experiences to prove its worth in abundance.
"I’ll just keep taking one game at a time".
Here’s to the next one … and the many more still to come!!
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