My life in sport: Mark Paston

Mark Paston. Photo / Mark MItchell

In an instant, All Whites goalkeeper Mark Paston became New Zealand's newest sporting hero.

Paston was elevated to the ranks of Kiwi sporting legends with his nerveless penalty save to deny Bahrain an equaliser and ensure the All Whites' progress to the finals in South Africa next year.

As the nation basked in the afterglow of the lofty sporting achievement, there has been a huge outpouring of admiration for the humble Kiwi goal-keeper, with even fiercely heterosexual men confessing their love for Paston.

Uncomfortable with the title of hero, Paston is quick to laugh off the attention he has received in the wake of the historic win, and believes the man-crushes won't last long.

For his part, Paston has tried to move on from the weekend's momentous achievement, quickly refocusing on the job at hand with the Wellington Phoenix.

The Phoenix take on the Newcastle Jets across the Tasman on Sunday and Paston, who is one of six players involved in the All Whites' win last weekend, said the team are keen to ensure there is no World Cup hangover.

What inspired you to embark on a career in football?

My Dad's English for a start, so I think that helps and I've got a few brothers and we all grew up kicking a ball around on the lawn, so it just sort of grew from there really.

I started playing when I was 5 years old, but I didn't go professional until I was 26, so it's probably not your standard professional footballers' story.

Why the late start?

I did a degree first at Victoria University [in computer science], then I did a year travelling and then I thought I'd give football a shot professionally.

When you were growing up were there any other sports you fancied yourself as a future star in?

I did a bit of horse riding when I was growing up, until I was about 13 and football sort of took over and I gave the horses away.

Describe your job ...

Most of the time it's pretty good, there's a lot of highs and a lot of lows. You get up in the morning and most people are at work by the time you get up so you can't really complain about that.

There's a lot of travel involved. Obviously we play in an Australian league so every second week, or sometimes for two weeks in a row we're over in Australia.

It's not as glamorous as a lot of people think. There's a lot of sitting in airports and on airplanes and it's a lot of hard work at times.

What is the best thing about your job?

I think getting to spend a lot of time with your teammates and the usual banter that gets thrown around.

People are pretty honest about how they talk to you. Just the camaraderie amongst the boys is brilliant.

And the worst thing?

I'd say probably injuries. I've had a few in my time and being injured is probably the hardest part for any sportsman.

How much control do you have over whether your team wins or loses?

A reasonable amount I think. As a goalkeeper the mistakes you make are kind of magnified tenfold because they tend to end up with the ball in the back of your net and that gets replayed on TV over and over again.

I think other people higher up the pitch you go, their mistakes are less costly. So that's how it's difficult and that's where the pressure is, but that's just how it is.

As far as winning games, obviously I don't score too many goals. Our role as goalkeeper is just to create a solid platform to allow the rest of the boys to go about their work.

What is the greatest achievement of your sporting career?

I think it would definitely have to be Saturday [helping the All Whites qualify for the World Cup with a 1-0 win over Bahrain] at the moment.

But hopefully there is more to come.

Obviously we've qualified for the World Cup now and it's important that we go there and compete and hopefully get some good results.

We don't want to go there and just be a part of it, we're never happy just to do that.

How have you dealt with the outpouring of admiration coming your way after that win?

It's a little bit crazy at the moment and obviously it's all really new.

But it'll die down and go away eventually.

It's nice in some ways, but it's difficult in others because I'm a pretty private person.

I suppose it goes with the territory being a sportsperson, there's a flipside to it as well - sometimes they like you and other times they don't like you but that's how it goes.

After such a big weekend has it been hard getting back in to Phoenix-mode?

Not really, I've sort of looked forward to coming in to training and getting back to reality.

It's been a crazy few days and pretty hard mentally so I've really enjoyed coming in and getting away from that side of things and just training and doing something I really enjoy.

What has been the darkest time in your career?

I think maybe the run of injuries I had in the UK - especially after I got my third one.

I had three operations in three years [two groin surgeries at Walsall, one shoulder surgery at St Johnstone] there and after my third one I basically thought maybe that's it.

So that was a difficult time. It was a shoulder injury and it took a lot of time for that to come right. I almost gave it away at the end of that.

What's the one career ambition you'd like to realise before you retire?

I think now that we're going to the World Cup the big thing is to make sure we get some good results over there. The draw hasn't been made yet but hopefully we get some teams we can compete with and do ourselves proud.

Who was your childhood hero?

I always liked Peter Schmeichel, the goalkeeper at Man United, when I was younger. He was obviously one of the world's best goalkeepers when he was playing so he was definitely someone I looked up to.

Were Man United the team you always followed growing up?

No, not really. I was probably more of a Liverpool supporter. They did quite well when I was young and a lot of people supported them at the time, so I jumped on that bandwagon.

CV

Previous Clubs: 2007-09


Wellington Phoenix, 2006-07 New Zealand Knights (A-League), 2005-06 St Johnstone (Scotland), 2004-05 Walsall (England) , 2003-04 Bradford City (England), 2000-03 Napier City Rovers (NZ).

Representative honours: 1997-present New Zealand (All Whites); New Zealand under-23.