Weekly player payments of $150 to play in New Zealand Football’s top-tier domestic leagues are set to be a thing of the past for A-League-bound Stephen Hoyle.
The fulltime professional football landscape now awaits the veteran Napier City Rovers player, and the side’s assistant coach for the past two seasons, after signing on as the Newcastle Jets’ head coach for the upcoming A-League Women’s competition.
Hoyle – also an assistant coach for the New Zealand Under-17 women’s team – has agreed to an initial two-season deal with the club.
While “super excited” about what lay ahead across the Tasman, Hoyle said it was also an emotional time preparing to bid farewell to a club that had given him so much.
Born in England but a New Zealand citizen, Hoyle first signed with Napier City Rovers in 2012 and is now in his third stint with the club.
“Closing a chapter on playing football in New Zealand is huge for me because it’s been the best part of my senior career as a player,” Hoyle said.
“I’ve spent a lot of time here. I would say I’m part of the furniture in the New Zealand football domestic scene.
“There’s an emotional side, leaving the family connections at Napier City Rovers.”
That includes his younger brother and the side’s captain Jim Hoyle, and fellow Barnsley-born player Liam Schofield.
Schofield joined Napier City Rovers – who take on Wellington Olympic in round-four Chatham Cup action at Bluewater Stadium on Sunday – in 2018 after Stephen Hoyle had recommended him to head coach Bill Robertson.
There were many “close-knit” bonds he had within the side, including with Robertson and players who were also good mates.
“I love playing football with them,” he said.
Hoyle arrived at Napier City Rovers as a 20-year-old 13 years ago, having come through the youth grades at Barnsley FC and then being on the books of Doncaster Rovers.
He said it was a shift that gave him a “new lease on life” football-wise. His role as an import also provided him with more responsibility.
“And someone like David Geary, who is now on the board, was good to me as a 20-year-old in making me feel like a senior player, getting me involved with the older boys and being in the back of the bus on trips,” he said.
“It was the first time I felt like a senior player, that I felt like I was really contributing to a men’s team.”
Napier City Rovers triumphed in the Central League in 2012.
Hoyle’s footballing journey then took him to Australia and Canada for professional contracts, before he returned to Napier City Rovers in 2015.
It was a season when the side again won the Central League, on the way breaking the record for most goals scored in a season.
Welcome 𝑺𝒕𝒆𝒑𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝑯𝒐𝒚𝒍𝒆! Our A-League Women's Head Coach is locked in for the next two seasons.
— NEWCASTLE JETS FC ✈️ (@NewcastleJetsFC) June 3, 2025
🔒 https://t.co/Cq0yVdISoZ#BondedByGold pic.twitter.com/90A4vWckmU
“We had a super-talented team and had a lot of fun. We kind of just clicked and just went out and did what we did,” Hoyle recalled.
“That season propelled me into being a good National League goal-scorer over the next two or three years.”
Changes to New Zealand Football’s domestic structure then guided Hoyle’s football journey to rival National League clubs WaiBOP United, Canterbury United and Auckland’s Eastern Suburbs – he was also director of women’s football at the latter club.
He returned to Napier City Rovers in 2024, as both a player and assistant coach.
“Coming back gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and was the most enjoyable for me because there was less pressure,” he said.
“I have just enjoyed playing football.
“I have gotten to spend more with my brother and worked with people I’d had connections with before, like bringing Matt Jones, who I had worked with as a younger player [helping] to establishing himself as one of the better defenders in the National League.”
A dream end to his third and final stint with Napier City Rovers would be securing a precious piece of silverware that has eluded him to date: a Chatham Cup winners’ medal.
He has been on the losing end in two finals (including in 2015 with Napier City Rovers) and two semifinals.
Last year the side reached the quarter-finals, the first time they had made it to the last eight since the club’s fifth triumph in the knockout competition in the 2019 season.
Hoyle said he was looking forward to the challenges that working in a professional fulltime environment would throw at him.
When his appointment was announced in a recent press release from Newcastle Jets management, one of the things he said he wanted to create was an environment where players felt honoured to represent the local community.
That is a trait that runs through Napier City Rovers.
Newcastle Jets chief executive Tain Drinkwater added club management were “very impressed with his vision and ambitions for the team”.
“He is committed to developing a successful programme for our A-League Women’s team, and he is ready to lead,” Drinkwater said.
Hoyle will take charge of a side that finished 11th in last season’s 12-team competition.
He’s determined to establish himself “as a really good A-League Women’s coach” during his stint in the coastal New South Wales city.
While very much “a baby” in terms of experience as a head coach, his goal is to go as far as he can in the professional ranks.
“I’m 33 this year so ... there’s a lot of time if I’ve got 30 or 35 years to go in this to become what I think I can become,” Hoyle said.
“I would like to aim for as high as I can possibly go.”
Inside the Rovers video series:
Episode 1: Match Fit
Episode 2: Teen’s Dream
Episode 3: New Beginnings
Episode 4: For Keeps
Episode 5: Kiwi Steve
Episode 6: Capital Punishment
Episode 7: Bouncing Back
Episode 8: The Centurion
Episode 9: The Running Man
Episode 10: Family Pride
Episode 11: On Target
Episode 12: Road Trip Blues
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 33 years of newsroom experience.
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