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Tribute to a Superteam
TRIBUTE TO A SUPERTEAM
by Jeremy Ruane
The achievements of Three Kings United's Premier Women's soccer team between 1997 and 2000 speak volumes for the team's dedication and commitment to striving for excellence on and off the field of play.
Such has been their impact on the women’s game in New Zealand that they have effectively reset the standards by which all women’s club sides will be judged for some considerable time to come.
An unprecedented three consecutive WSANZ National Knockout Cup triumphs is arguably the pinnacle of their feats in this time, although as good a case can be put for being recognised by one of the country’s leading sporting organisations, Sport Auckland, as its Sports Team of the Year in 1999 - soccer’s first-ever trophy at this prestigious awards ceremony.
Prior to 1999, soccer had never featured among the senior prizewinners at Sport Auckland's annual Awards Dinner, an event held to recognise sporting excellence, and for which the organising body invites entries from all manner of sporting codes in New Zealand's biggest city.
It goes without saying that Three Kings' achievement in winning this much-sought-after award is a real "feather in the cap" for soccer in this country, and women's soccer in particular.
The core of the side has been together throughout the decade - the lessons from those early days of more draws and odd-goal defeats than wins have obviously been well learnt!!
Local league and cup honours have been claimed with great frequency, along with individual honours, both representative and performance-wise, and wins galore. Between July 7, 1997, and the end of the 1999 season, the team recorded fifty wins in the fifty-three matches played during this period, including a run of twenty-nine consecutive victories.
The goals have flowed like fine wine, too - they are the only team in the 28-year history of Northern Premier Women’s League soccer to have netted 100 goals in consecutive league seasons.
Not even the star-studded Eastern Suburbs team of the late 1970s, nor their successors in the 1980s, Mt. Wellington, could achieve this feat, despite the latter combination boasting the incomparable talents of legendary SWANZ internationals Wendy Sharpe, Debbie Pullen and Donna Baker, to name just three members of one of this country's finest-ever women's sides.
And along the way, Three Kings have rewritten the record books with regards record victories in both the Northern Premier Women’s League and the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield.
One of the most pleasing aspects of the team's success is the manner in which they play the game. Despite their continued success, these fine ambassadors for women's soccer remain unaffected by it, preferring to channel their energies towards playing the game with style, with flair, and above all, with an emphasis on entertainment and enjoyment for players and spectators alike.
The 2000 season saw a much-changed squad taking the field for Three Kings, a result of a rebuilding process brought about by a couple of retirements, a handful of players moving out of the area, and a couple of long-term injuries to key players.
As a result, the team’s form fluctuated throughout the season, but they signed off on a winning note, taking out the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield Final on penalties from arch-rivals Lynn-Avon United, thus ensuring at least one women’s soccer prize would be on show in the club’s trophy cabinet over the summer months.
Despite the success and recognition which the team has gained Three Kings United, it wasn’t reflected in the support afforded New Zealand’s most successful women’s club side in the latter 1990s by the club’s members - only a handful of primarily senior club members made the effort to regularly attend their matches, a stark contrast to Lynn-Avon, who enjoy the backing of virtually their entire club by comparison.
Because of this, and a handful of other factors, including injury, retirement and relocation, the core group of players around which one of New Zealand women’s soccer’s most outstanding sides has been built are now embracing new challenges, and this outstanding side will be no more.
What follows is a tribute to a group of outstanding female footballers, whose collective efforts, in the final years of the twentieth century, made them, in my eyes at least, a truly Super Team.
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TO ALL THE GIRLS
Jeremy Ruane, with apologies to Willie & Julio - yes, that song!
To all the girls at TKU
Who wore with pride the silver-blue,
Come rain, hail, sleet or sun,
You scored heaps of goals for fun
And won trophies galore - YAHOO!!!
Writing your reports has been easy
‘Cause your football’s been top quality.
I’ve loved watching you strut your stuff
You’re the best - from Reinga to Bluff!
Thanks heaps to all the girls at TKU!