World Cup circle complete after 27 barren years

BY TONY SMITH

OPINION: Mere minutes after the sweet strains of the final whistle, as players piled onto each other in frenzied delight, ex-All Whites great Ceri Evans posed the question on four million lips.

"Is that the best atmosphere ever at a New Zealand sports event?" Short answer: Yes.

New Zealand sport has seen some dramatic events, most notably one of the greatest middle-distance races of all time, the 1974 Commonwealth Games 1500m clash between Filbert Bayi and John Walker.

We've hosted three Empire or Commonwealth Games, and the 1987 Rugby World Cup victory was widely celebrated.

But there has been nothing to match Saturday's World Cup fever as New Zealanders finally got football's pulsating appeal and its enormous global reach.

Nothing yet compares with the Wellington Whiteout. Rory Fallon's cannonball headed goal and Mark Paston's pearler of a penalty save were being lauded beneath brooding clouds as people pushed out of the stadium gates towards the party precinct of Courtenay Place.

But there were almost as many marvelling at the performance of New Zealand's 12th man – the near-capacity 35,194 crowd – a record for a football match in this rugby-mad land.

There have been full houses before – in the dim distant past – for rugby tests, of course. But a test rugby match is a 21st-century synonym for a silent retreat.

Football followers are much more flagrant.

The din in the Tin was ear-splitting and remorseless, the chants catchy, quirky and ceaseless and the sheer elation was unmatched as the All Whites finally got a 27-year monkey off their backs.

Fans came in their droves from all points of the Kiwi compass. Warwick Heal, of Golden Bay, was so determined to be there after a match-morning leg injury that he discharged himself from hospital in a wheelchair.

Men, women and children wore white wigs, white overalls and even white shorts of the 1982 World Cup finals type.

Even the players got into the groove. Fallon's post-match T-shirt sported a slogan purporting white to be the new black. The party mood was set well before the match. Oceania player of the century Wynton Rufer, wearing white linen pants, exhorted his gathered worshippers to launch a Mexican wave – not that they needed any encouragement. Rufer and his 1982 All Whites set the tone with a pre-match lap of the teeming stands.

Buzzer Mackay, the livewire little midfielder, played it for laughs as he slipped on the greasy track, recovered with a forward roll and bounced up to take a bow.

Rufer provided a poignant moment as he waited by the tunnel to embrace Simon Elliott, the injured midfielder who missed making history with the on-field XI.

The game gathered pace right from the outset with the boo boys and girls roasting the Uruguayan referee for an early yellow card to cult hero defender Ben Sigmund.

Near misses were greeted with groans, Bahraini raids were watched behind bitten fingernails.

When Fallon rocketed his header home, the faithful burst into song. "He's big, he's bad, he's better than his dad – Rory Fallon.

"This is going to be the longest 45 minutes of my life," young fan Ryan Anderson, 18, of Kaiapoi, muttered from beneath a white headband.

He wasn't kidding. A deathly hush descended when Bahrain won their penalty, with punters praying for Paston's intervention.

The subsequent roar at the keeper's scintillating save must have been heard in Stewart Island.

As the Bahrainis began to unfurl the white flag, braver spectators began shedding their shirts to wave them at their heroes, creating a shimmer which rippled around the ground. All that was left was the ref's final whistle blast.

Coach Ricki Herbert punched the air and the Kiwi substitutes streamed from the bleachers to join the pell-mell of players, huddled in a haystack on the turf they had so doughtily defended.

Still, no-one wanted to leave. The players found the energy for a final lap of honour before almost reluctantly retiring to share the sanctuary of the dressing room with their 1982 predecessors, at Herbert's behest.

The World Cup circle is now complete after 27 barren years.

- © Fairfax NZ News