Soccer: Kingz prove successful with spectators

By Terry Maddaford

The Football Kingz lost on the field but were winners off it when they kicked off the Australian National League season at North Harbour Stadium last Friday night.

Figures from the eight first-round Ericsson Cup games confirmed that the Auckland-based Kingz played in front of the biggest crowd of the round.

"We are still awaiting our final head-count, but even the official paid attendance of 8200 was 200 more than Parramatta had for their game against Marconi," Kingz chairman Chris Turner said yesterday. "We believe we had a total crowd of around 10,500."

All clubs reported better crowd figures on the opening weekend when compared with corresponding games last season.

There should be an even bigger turnout this weekend with Perth Glory and Northern Spirit, the best-supported teams last season, playing their first home games.

The Kingz will fly to Sydney on Saturday morning for their Sunday afternoon clash with Sydney United, who must bounce back from their 0-2 home loss to Northern Spirit on Monday.

Former All White Neil Harlock scored what proved to be the winning goal in Wollongong's upset 2-1 win over defending champions South Melbourne.

Other New Zealand internationals playing in the league include Vaughan Coveny at South Melbourne, Paul Urlovic with the Melbourne Knights, Mark Atkinson and Sean Douglas at Carlton and injured All Whites captain Chris Zoricich at Sydney Olympic.

Turner said there would be a travelling party of 18 for away games, with the make-up dependent on player-coach Wynton Rufer's decision to play or not.

"We are allowed only three substitutes," Turner said. "If Wynton decides to play then we will obviously include [assistant coach] Shane Rufer in the party.

"Otherwise he might stay home, allowing us to take team manager Albert Murphy. One of the club's management will go to every game."

Rufer has yet to name his squad for Sunday's game, but with Che Bunce likely to play, Rufer might step aside to give himself more time to recover from his recent Achilles tendon operation.