A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
TWO key members of coach Anthony Hudson’s All Whites squad for the World Cup football playoff against Peru have strong Gisborne links.
Rory Fallon, younger son of former Gisborne City player and coach Kevin Fallon and his wife Mere (nee Sadlier), was born in Gisborne and has been a regular visitor to see family and friends.
Just as his father played a pivotal role as assistant to coach John Adshead in the All Whites’ 1982 World Cup campaign, Rory Fallon was vital to New Zealand’s participation in the 2010 finals, scoring the winner in the playoff against Bahrain.
Hudson has recalled him to the squad to contribute — on and off the pitch — from his experience of the big occasion.
Ryan Thomas, who plays for Dutch premier division team PEC Zwolle, is the son of Michael and Debbie Thomas, of Te Puke. Michael Thomas came to Gisborne from England with his parents, Peter and Doreen Thomas, in the early 1970s.
They were persuaded to move by Des Charteris, a Gisborne teacher who visited Manchester on a year’s work exchange and who shared with Peter Thomas a keen interest in rugby.
Doreen Thomas taught music at St Mary’s Pimary School and Peter was a water inspector with Gisborne City Council.
Michael went to Lytton High School, later worked at Dalgety’s and played football for High School Old Boys.
After he joined BP, he transferred to Mt Maunganui, where he met Debbie, and they moved to Whangarei, Auckland and eventually back to the Bay of Plenty.
As their son Ryan moved through the grades, he came under the football coaching influence of former All White and — in the mid-1980s — Gisborne City midfielder Declan Edge.
Parents organised a car pool so that Ryan and four others could travel four nights a week from Tauranga to Hamilton for training with Edge; then Ryan Thomas boarded with Edge for three years before shifting south with eight other players to train with Edge at his Olé academy in Wellington.
In 2013, Thomas felt ready for the next step, and paid his own way to Holland for trials with PEC Zwolle. In October that year he made his first-team debut. By season’s end he had scored two goals in a 5-1 win against league champions Ajax in the final of the Dutch equivalent of the FA Cup.
Still with PEC Zwolle, Thomas is one of the standout players Hudson has been glad to welcome into the squad following doubts over injury and availability for some of them.
Yesterday, Hudson named a 23-strong squad that included Winston Reid, Chris Wood, Tommy Smith and Thomas.
He said it was an unaccustomed luxury, and a first in his three-year tenure at the New Zealand helm, to have a full-strength line-up available.
“It’s the first time I think we’ve been able to really get all our best players together,” Hudson said.
Both Reid and Wood had missed English Premier League matches recently, centreback Reid standing down for West Ham with a calf strain while a dodgy hamstring had kept Wood sidelined for Burnley.
Reid lasted the full 90 minutes for West Ham in their 4-1 loss to Liverpool yesterday, while Wood played 65 minutes in Burnley’s 1-0 win against Southampton.
They and Smith were expected to arrive in Wellington today.
Ipswich Town defender Smith has also overcome injury and will join Wood, Reid and Thomas, who plays for PEC Zwolle in the Dutch Eredivisie, when New Zealand host world No.10-ranked Peru in Wellington on Saturday.
“I don’t think those four players have ever played together for the All Whites — for the first time in three years, we’ll potentially have the strongest 11 we’ve ever had,” Hudson said.
Providing an extra boost of experience in the squad are Jeremy Brockie and Fallon.
Hudson said the pair provided value off the pitch as well as on it, bringing reassurance to the youthful squad which could prove key, particularly in the return leg on November 15 at the Estadio Nacional de Lima in Peru.
“We’ve got some players in the squad that I really value, young players that are part of the future of the national team,” he said.
“But right now I need a little bit more experience on and off the pitch.
“We’ve got two really good characters that have been there and done it, have been in these situations where there’s a lot on the line.”
All Whites: Stefan Marinovic, Max Crocombe, Glen Moss (goalkeepers); Michael Boxall, Kip Colvey, Andrew Durante, Dane Ingham, Winston Reid, Storm Roux, Tommy Smith, Themi Tzimopoulos, Deklan Wynne (defenders); Clayton Lewis, Michael McGlinchey, Marco Rojas, Ryan Thomas, Bill Tuiloma (midfielders); Kosta Barbarouses, Jeremy Brockie, Rory Fallon, Monty Patterson, Shane Smeltz, Chris Wood (forwards).