All Whites hero's wild days of sex and drugs

Wynton Rufer with wife Lisa.

Rufer with Lisa and sons Joshua and Caleb.

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New Zealand's greatest-ever football player has told how he did as much scoring off the pitch as on it before he found love and God.

Wynton Rufer was just 18 when he kicked us to the Fifa World Cup in 1982 for the first time.

It was the year Kiwis abandoned their obsession with rugby to follow a band of mullet-haired men in tight shorts on an incredible journey to the very top of the "beautiful game".

Female fans were keen to meet All Whites players and the teen striker with the pin-up looks was only too happy to oblige. "It was a great time – they [team-mates] made me feel so welcome and made sure I fitted in. It was a dream," Rufer, now a happily-married committed Christian, told Sunday News.

"You had a few crazy characters there in the side. Today everyone is a Kiwi, but back then half the squad was British and they love a drink and they don't mind skirts.

They were such great characters. You join in with the crowd. I wasn't so much into the drinking. But, phwoar, I loved the skirts."

The striker impressed on the football field as well, scoring a crucial goal against Kuwait and then the winning goal against China in the World Cup-qualifying play-off. His talent attracted international scouts and he was signed by Swiss giants FC Zurich – his father Arthur was born there.

Over the next five seasons, he played 100 games for the world-ranked club side, chalking up 38 goals. Fame and fortune fuelled another side of his personality.

"Drugs and chicks were my staple diet and they were all in plentiful supply," Rufer said.

"You play your game and after the game you meet a few mates. I was into chicks and smoked a few joints. Europe was rife with the good life."

But that lifestyle was turned around by a "fairy tale" encounter with an Australian tourist at an Auckland hotel, where Rufer and his All Whites team plus their Socceroos rivals, were staying for a test in 1985.

Blonde and beautiful, Lisa Limmey turned heads from both teams, but she was a religious young woman holidaying with her family – not a groupie.

"[One member of the football teams' camps] was trying to hit on her," Rufer said. "He was married with kids and told her he was single." His advances were rejected but Lisa did have eyes for the handsome young Kiwi striker – who had to quickly mend his ways.

"It was a fairy tale. I have come back to play against Australia on the 21st of September, 1985. I remember it exactly because it is the day I met her," Rufer said.

"You meet a girl and she is absolutely beautiful, drop-dead gorgeous and... she is a good Christian girl. I fell in love... and she is my wife today.

"I am living in Switzerland, she is living in Perth and we met in Auckland in a 48-hour period. It is a miracle." The womanising ended, he cleaned up his act and Rufer married Lisa 14 months later. They are still together and have sons Caleb, 18, and Joshua, 14.

A further profound change came a month before his wedding, when he went to a bar with a fellow civilian army conscript [military training is compulsory in Switzerland] and ended up talking about religion for hours.

Following the chat, Rufer headed to the nearest telephone box to ring Lisa.

During the conversation, a "deep peaceful presence filled me," he said.

"I knew it was Jesus. It was like he had touched me on the shoulder and his spirit was in me," Rufer said.

"I know that I had experienced God. I was born again, although I didn't find out that's what it was called until much later.

"I've played World Cup soccer against Brazil, Russia, Scotland and more; against some of the best teams in the world.

"I scored goals that helped put New Zealand right up there with the world's best.

"But none of it compared with what happened to me in that phone box. For the first time in my life I had peace inside."

Rufer went on to play a further 11 years of professional football and was voted Oceania's player of the 20th century.

Now 46, he last night joined several team-mates from the '82 campaign at Wellington's Westpac Stadium to see if a new batch of All Whites heroes could repeat the historic feat.

- © Fairfax NZ News