Anendra Singh It was the late sixties and Viv Moule was a schoolboy in Devon, England.
Young Viv loved soccer but, oddly enough, it was not an option at the grammar school he attended.
"At high school we were not allowed to play soccer because one of the teachers there was an England rugby selector," Moule, 57, the Eskview Blue women's soccer coach, tells SportToday.
So the teenager tried organising the game outside the school. Exeter was the closest city to his dairy farming hometown and it did not have a soccer team that could foot it in the competitive divisions. He supported Wolverhampton Wanderers instead, although these days he's a Liverpool fan. Instead, Moule was a Southwest England under-18 rugby representative.
It was not until he moved to Hamilton, New Zealand, as an 18-year-old herd tester in 1970 that his passion for the beautiful game started to crystalise.
"I started a junior football club and it was kind of strange in Colin Meads' country," the human resources manager for Hawke's Bay Regional Council says.
"Kids turned up with no boots and they would start playing on a frosty pitch. It was quite amazing," says Moule, proud that those youngsters went on to win the under-12 and under-14 regional tournaments.
Moule was so sick of travelling from Devon to Hamilton that he decided not to go back to his homeland.
"As a dairy cattle herd tester I got to stay at different farms in Otorohanga in 1970. It was great. I hope to write a book about that some day."
Fast forward from there and in 1977 Moule moved to Hawke's Bay to work as a social worker at Esk Valley and there his love for the sport blossomed with the Eskview Sports Club formed a couple of years before.
He played as a striker ("who couldn't score many goals") for the top grade side before going on to coach the women, whose team was formed in 1984, for the past eight seasons. "The club's been a passion for me and later on to developing women's football or other (male) players who went on to do well," he explains, singling out 1999 Bay under-16 representative Andrew Boyens, who is now in Toronto footing it against the likes of David Beckham and Galaxy.
He coached his three sons in Bay age-group sides, leading their team to win the national under-16 tournament after coaching many of the players from the time they were 11 years old.
"I coached juniors when I had my first family, so with the second family now I suppose I'll be coaching juniors all over again," he says of wife Steph, who will be in the Eskview Blue side to play against Napier City Rovers in the Knockout Cup final at Petane Domain today in a 1pm kick-off. They have three children - six-year-old Katie, three-year-old Abby and 18-month-old Daniel.
"It's always challenging (coaching) with your wife in a team. Should I be a husband or the coach," says Moule, relishing having co-coach Glenn Kastrinos to share the responsibility this season.
"If I want Steph to know something I tell Glenn and so I don't have to deal with her," he says with a laugh. He hails former Cape Physio Hawke's Bay and Central Federation League women's American-born coach, Kastrinos, for his input.
"I've never been a great tactician but I enjoy the player management side of things to lift them up.
"There are some (players) you can shout at and there are others you can't say boo to, to get the best out of them." Moule commends the club for treating both their women's sides - Blue and White - equally in terms of resources and respect, although Blue is the first team.
"We encourage family members so as to establish connections between husbands, wives and partners. "I think all men's clubs should aspire to have a women's team and a strong one because that's what makes a club complete in my eyes." Building floodlights and converting the old clubrooms into a kindergarten and building new clubrooms made sense, he says.
"We combined soccer and rugby and have played touch and seven-a-side soccer daylight time for the past 25 years." Moule and his girls have had to wear the bridesmaid tag in the two finals they have played while he's been "on and off" at the helm in the past eight years. Last month the Blues became the first team to win any top-level competition at the club when they won the league championship.
You some how get the feeling it's now or never for Eskview but if that's the case then Moule's calm exterior camouflages that.
"On form and on paper we're going in as favourites but it's a funny old game, football.
"It's having everyone available on the day and this year we've been able to cover and that's the joys of having a second team."
Moule is aware that Rossi Gannon's Napier City are back at full strength too, barring availability.
"Our team's more skilful now over the years and the players don't have weaknesses - they can all play so that's rewarding as a coach," says Moule, adding he'll be content with his side's achievements this season, whatever happens today. His rival coach, Gannon, 44, a self-employed photographer, has been through the motions. He has two women's knockout titles under his belt in his three seasons of coaching women.
"We don't want them (Eskview) to clean out the competition so we want to cause an upset and have some silverware in our cupboard too," he says. Wary of a couple of players who can turn defence into attack, Gannon says they wanted to prevent the Blues from emulating their last season's effort of winning all three trophies - the first round cup, the league cup and the knockout.
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