A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
The wind blowing down the swimming pool pitch at Nelson Park and whipping the length of the Wainui ground was the unseen 12th man in Eastern League Division 1 football on Saturday.
Thistle Youth were thrilled to hold Heavy Equipment Services Gisborne United Premiers to a 2-0 scoreline at Nelson Park, while 1st Class Decorators Wainui Sharks held off hard-charging United Firsts to win 2-1 at Wainui.
Player-coach Josh Adams scored both of United Premiers’ goals against Thistle Youth, but the junior Jags had a chance to go ahead when the game was scoreless.
Half an hour into the game, referee Ian Sambrook spotted a handball by a defender in the United penalty area and pointed to the spot.
United goalkeeper Seth Piper guessed correctly and dived to his right, parried the shot and regathered the ball as Thistle chasers converged.
Five minutes later, Sambrook awarded a penalty for handball in the Thistle penalty area, and Adams put it away.
Adams gave United a two-goal cushion with 30 minutes to go. Having asked the referee at a previous stoppage whether he was able to take a quick free-kick, he was told he could. So while Thistle were lining up their wall, he chipped the ball into the empty side of the goal.
“The wind played a big part in the game,” Adams said.
“We played against it in the first half. We had good spells but we didn’t get a lot towards the goal.”
The halftime message was that the offering so far was not good enough.
“This is not us; we’re a lot better than this,” Adams told his players.
Second-half possession would have been split 85-15 in United’s favour, he said.
“The hardest thing was the wind was so strong that every ball played up to me was caught by it,” Adams said.
“They must’ve had 20 goalkicks in the second half, not so much from shots that missed but from balls that got picked up by the wind.”
Standout players for United were central midfielders Corey Adams and Dane Thompson “doing their job the way they do every week”, leftback Jonny Curle, centreback Kieran Higham, who made some good runs from deep, and wingers Baxter Mackay on the right and Malcolm Marfell on the left.
Thistle Youth coach Matt Harvey was grateful for the services of first team goalkeeping coach and squad member Mark Baple.
“He’s a class act,” Harvey said.
“He made four or five saves that prevented what I thought were certain goals.
“As a squad, we were really happy we conceded only two goals.”
They were also glad to have Reserve team players Andre Riley and Shehab Altour in midfield and Gee Gaurav at rightback, he said.
Youth team regulars Te Kani Wirepa-Hei (defence/midfield), Dan Robinson (attack) and Shannon Dowsing (central defence) were also outstanding.
Wainui Sharks goalkeeper Matt Wotherspoon pulled a match-winning save out of his bag of tricks to deny his old club a share of the points at Wainui on Saturday.
Wotherspoon was goalkeeper of the United side who lost the Bailey Cup final to Wainui Sharks 2-1 after extra time last season.
He and Wainui keeper Patrick Pierard were the stars of an epic cup final. When Pierard headed overseas, Wainui signed Wotherspoon.
And when United Firsts co-coach Stu Cranswick hit a 20-metre piledriver towards the keeper’s bottom right corner of the goal 10 minutes from time on Saturday, Wotherspoon flattened his big frame to get a hand to the ball and touch it on to the post and to safety.
Wainui had gone ahead in the first half when wide frontrunner Jake Theron beat two or three players on the edge of the penalty area before scoring.
Fifteen minutes into the second half, Wainui’s other wide frontrunner, Jack Tobin, made it 2-0. Thiago Carlos de Melo caught United off guard with a quick free-kick from the right that he chipped in to Tobin, who brought the ball down and tapped it in.
Ten minutes after that, Cranswick’s co-coach Aaron Graham cracked one in from the edge of the penalty area to make it 2-1 and it was all on.
Sharks have been a bit short-handed lately — Dan Torrie, Dan Willock and Connor Findlay were away at the weekend — so they’ve borrowed Greg Judd from Wainui Salty Dogs for a while.
He did so well at leftback on Saturday he won the player-of-the-day award.
Others to shine were Wainui rightback Andrew McBride and midfielder Max Logan, referee Greg Fisher controlling his second game of the afternoon, and United keeper Josh Adams, who’d already played a game for United Premiers.
Graham said it was hard going in the first half, when they were against the wind.
In the second half, with the wind behind them, they had “quite a few opportunities” but couldn’t quite manage to convert them into goals.
“Credit to Blake (Mulrooney) and his team,” Graham said. “They play a good style of football and are a hard team to break down.”
Results — Eastern League 2: QRS Wairoa Athletic 0 Coates Associates Wainui Demons 3, Smash Palace Shockers 2 Thistle Vintage 8, Sunshine Brewing Wainui Salty Dogs 7 HES Wainui Seconds 0, Tatapouri Bohemians 5 Gisborne Pro Roofing Bohemians 0.
Eastern League 3: Tumu Thistle 1 HES United Thirds 3, Gizzy Bobcat Services Thistle 7 Ngatapa Silkies 4.