Winner Stays On - Round 1 (New Zealand)

Having randomly selected New Zealand as my first adopted team to support in the World Cup I'll be keeping a close eye (well, as close as I can whilst at work) on their first game against Slovakia tomorrow in Rustenburg.

With Scotland absent from the finals once again my plan is to take adopt 'winner stays on' approach to who I support so there is every chance that I will be an honorary Slovakian by 3pm tomorrow afternoon.  In fact there's an overwhelming chance.  Slovakia whilst hardly a footballing super power are the clear favourites ahead of the tie. William Hill currently offers odds of 1/2 for Slovakia whilst you'll get the more generous 13/2 for backing New Zealand.  

New Zealand's only previous world cup appearance came in 1982, a tournament which saw them lose all three of their group games by at least three goals.  Even Scotland managed to put them to the sword during a five goals romp in a sun drenched Malaga (Dalglish, Wark (2), Robertson, Archibald) although we did concede two (Sumner and Wooddin if you're interested).

In order to fully prepare for my first (and possibly last) 90 minutes supporting the All Whites I have attempted to piece together some facts on football in the land of the long white cloud.

• New Zealand traditionally battled it out with Australia for top honours in the Oceania Football Confederation, however, since Austrailia have left to play in the Asian Football Confederation New Zealand remain as the only seeded team in the OFC.
• New Zealand has a semi professional domestic league called the New Zealand Football Championship which was created in 2004.  Their only full time professional club, Wellington Phoenix, play in the Australasian A-League.
• New Zealand play their home games at either North Harbour Stadium in Auckland or Westpac Stadium in Wellington.  Both stadiums are used mainly for Rugby League or Union although Wellington Phoenix use the Westpac for their A-League matches.
• Football struggles for popular support in New Zealand with most Kiwis preferring Rugby League, Rugby Union and Cricket.
• Former Scotland international, Bobby Clark has played a significant role in the football development of New Zealand.  After his stint manaing the All Whites from 1994-96 he took a job as head coach at Stanford University.  He began recruiting Kiwi players and continued this trend upon taking another coaching role at Notre Dame.  Nowadays about 25 New Zealanders are playing for NCAA Division 1 programs in the USA.

That is pretty much all I could come up with.  I was hoping to find a supporters club (along the lines of Australia's Fanatics) but I couldn't find any such group.  If my New Zealand supporting spell continues for more than one game I will endavour to contact some Wellington fans and get their  insight.

In qualifying for the 2010 tournament in South Africa, New Zealand topped their OFC group also containing New Caledonia, Fiji and Vanuatu.  New Zealand won five out of six games in this group with one loss against Fiji.  Upon topping the group the Kiwis then had to defeat Bahrain in a play off in order to book their place at the top table in South Africa.  The first leg was played away in the Bahrain National Stadium in front of 37,000 fans and finished goalless, New Zealand won the return leg 1-0 by virtue of a Rory Fallon goal in a match played at The Westpac in Wellington in front of a record crowd of 36,500 supporters.  

Whether this signalled a turning point in New Zealand football's popularity is unclear, the NZFA will certainly be hoping so and also that the New Zealand national team manages to maintain it's impressive improvment in South Africa.