Beautiful game for a holiday

Bryony Large heads off James Bush in a children's soccer game at Madills Farm. Picture / Kenny Rodger

Football is the defining word of Bryony Large's school holiday.

The 9-year-old wakes in the morning to watch the World Cup on television with her father. Then she and her two younger brothers go to Madills Farm and the Eastern Suburbs Association Football Club, where about 160 children are on the school holiday football programme.

She plays from 9am till 3pm, with a few breaks.

Back home her father has put two soccer goals in the back yard. Bryony swears her mother doesn't mind the extra landscaping.

She has football posters on her wall, and has played the game since the last World Cup, when a family friend suggested it.

"So I started playing, and I really enjoyed it. The friend is playing rugby now. I used to play basketball as well, but I stopped because I like soccer better and more of my friends play it. It's fun and it keeps me healthy."

Bryony is one of about 90,000 children aged from 5 to 12 playing soccer in a country where the oval ball rules.

The club's youth and juniors head coach, Mathew Bayliss, came to New Zealand 18 months ago from Watford in England, "where the children probably think about football 24/7".

"When I came through border control here I had a joke that I was going to teach them how to play with the right shaped ball.

"It is different here, but things are slowly changing. Out in the parks, instead of seeing children with rugby balls, you're starting to see more juggling and having a kick around with a football."

He said things like watching the All Whites play against Brazil helped the sport.

"There are probably more posters up of Roberto Carlos and Ronaldinho, and then, all of a sudden, there are players like Noah Hickey who was a junior at this club out there playing against those names. And that can only be good for the sport here."

He said the club had about 1500 players aged from 4 to 14, and credits the World Cup for a surge in interest in from local children who had not played football.

Soccer New Zealand marketing manager Nick Thurston said the number of young players had increased by about 20,000 since the last World Cup, in 2002.

Numbers tended to fall again as children reached their teens, which Mr Thurston attributed to extra demands on their time, such as academic study, more entertainment choices ... and rugby.