One of the true greats of New Zealand women’s soccer has been forced to hang up her boots. A chronic knee injury has brought a premature end to the footballing career of Amanda Crawford, whose absence will be sorely felt by club (Lynn-Avon United), province (Auckland) and country. The thirty-two-year-old striker began her senior career with Kelston West (later West Auckland) as a fifteen-year-old goal-getter in 1986, and in the ensuing six seasons, she scored a total of 113 goals for the "Westies", helping them to the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield in 1988, and the Northern Premier Women’s League title in 1990, in the process. Included in this tally are thirteen matches in which she scored three goals or more, including six goals against Onehunga Sports and seven against Takapuna City in the 1988 season, and an eight-goal haul in an 11-2 win over Otahuhu United the following year - her best return in a senior club fixture. A switch to neighbouring club Te Atatu for the 1992 season saw Amanda inspiring the club to their greatest-ever season in 1994, the year Te Atatu won the "Grand Slam" of Auckland women’s soccer - the Premier League, the Knockout Shield and the Champion-of-Champions trophy. 1998 saw another change of club for "Jabba", and without question her most significant move in terms of trophy-winning. Lynn-Avon United have been the prime beneficiaries of her footballing skills over the last five seasons, and in that time she has been a driving force in their quest for silverware. As a result, the Ken Maunder Park club’s trophy cabinet has been graced by the Northern Premier Women’s League trophy in each of the last three seasons, and the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield in 1999 - the competition was discontinued after the following season. They have also won the National Knockout Trophy, the Uncle Toby’s Women’s Knockout Cup, in 2000 and 2002, with Ellerslie downing Lynn-Avon in the 2001 final to interrupt the sequence. "Jabba" scored a hat-trick in the 2000 final - United walloped Wairarapa United 6-0 - and quite rightly collected the final’s MVP award for her performance. In those five years at Lynn-Avon, Crawford has scored goals for fun - 139 all told, 104 of those coming in the Premier League alone. Hat-tricks or better were recorded in a staggering twenty-four matches in all competitions in this time. Along with honours at club level has come individual recognition aplenty for this vibrant striker. She made the first of 87 appearance for Auckland in 1987, and scored 57 goals for her province, including nine in one of the most complete team performances seen in the twenty-six year history of National Women’s Soccer Tournaments, as the "A Team" comprehensively demolished Canterbury B 24-0 in 1999. Crawford was a member of six National Tournament-winning Auckland combinations, and was an integral part of the province’s

SWANZ Legend Hangs Up Her Boots by Jeremy Ruane (February, 2003) photo courtesy NZ Soccer in action for Lynn-Avon in action against Team USA Yet another trophy!!

success in the inaugural National Women’s Soccer League in 2002. As well, she was a member of numerous successful Auckland U-17 and U-19 combinations, scoring 31 goals for the latter team between 1985 and 1990. The trophies continued to accumulate for the effervescent striker. A two-time winner of New Zealand’s Player of the Year award (1996 and 2001), she was voted New Zealand Players’ Player of the Year four times by her peers, in 1988, 1995, 1997 and 2001. Auckland’s Player of the Year in 1998 and 2001 also won the National Tournament Player of the Year title in 1997 and 1999, while her prolific goalscoring for Lynn-Avon saw her clinch the Northern Premier Women’s League Top Goalscorer trophy in 1999, 2000 and 2002. That Amanda Crawford will be missed by New Zealand, as they prepare to embark on the road to qualifying for the 2003 Women’s World Cup Finals, is something of an understatement. Such is the combination of their geographic isolation and numerous other inconsistencies over the years that the SWANZ have played just 93 internationals since making their bow at the 1975 Asian Cup. Crawford has appeared in 41 of those games, making her the country’s fourth most-capped women’s international. Furthermore, she has been the first name down on the team-sheet in each of the SWANZ last 28 internationals, dating back to an October 1994 clash against Australia, the country against whom she made her debut on 26 March, 1989. It took "Jabba" just two games to make her mark on the scoresheet on the international stage, as she netted the winner against Taiwan at the 1989 Oceania Nations Cup tournament in Brisbane. She went on to score eleven goals for the SWANZ, leaving her fifth-equal in the list of New Zealand’s most prolific markswomen. Included in this tally are the last two goals scored by New Zealand on the world scene, against Canada and Japan in the Pacific Cup tournament in 2000, the SWANZ most recent international appearance. To mark the retirement of this legend of New Zealand women’s soccer, a special presentation was made to Crawford on February 22 by her team-mates, club-mates and members of the women’s soccer fraternity, in recognition of her massive contribution to the game in Auckland and New Zealand over the last seventeen years. On receipt of an engraved trophy, a compilation of her achievements over the years, and her Lynn-Avon United and New Zealand team shirts, Crawford simply said "Thanks", in keeping with her career-long preference to do her talking on the pitch, something which her knee injury, on which she had a major operation this time last year, will no longer allow her to do. Women’s soccer will be the poorer for the absence of the prodigious talent that is Amanda Crawford - thanks, "Jabba"!!