My (partial) memories of the Kingz/Bloc......
I remember going to NHS, and trying to sit in behind Richard, Mike and their friend (also called Mike?) no one stood there at the time - the three of them were Bloc(k) 5 in the beginning. the chanting was minimal, as you'd expect with 3 people in those early days. I remember one match someone kept on playing the ball backwards and I grumbled, and Rich said "play the way you face", to which I replied " the player should face the other fudgeing way" #bantz
I didn't go to many games at NHS, as I live(d) in Papakura - so was more than happy the Kingz moved to Mt Smart - that's where I really joined the Bloc. There was a pre-season match against someone (a local club team?), and I remember earlier in the day I posted on the "Stand Up" forum that Paston was a good keeper. Some dude called DRX (oh Mr Cross.....) ridiculed my assertions over Paston loudly not knowing I was nearby. How did that go Dave? ;)
It's all a bit fuzzy now.....I remember the Japanese Appreciation Night, and the Viking hats for the 2 Norweigan boys, both of whom were shark. Oh! And Gay Pride night for when Eastern Pride came to town, and I wore a boob tube. And the time I got the Holmes show along....Pete Cronshaw I think was the reporter. Wazza gave a great reply when Cronshaw asked "what do you say that soccer is only kiss and cuddle?" Waz replied straight away "isn't rugby all grab and grope?". Sharp.
I remember the bloody postie.....what was his name? Worzel Gummidge lookalike, loved Man U - only rode a bike? Anyway, we bought each other beers all night one week, and I thought he was a good bloke. I didn't know he only rode, so he was ok - meanwhile, I'm struggling to see my car let alone the road.....misspent youth and all that. There was always a lot of drink at the Kingz. A lot of drink. It probably helped to get through the 90 minutes.
The confetti! Oh, the fudgeing confetti! You quickly learned to cover your beers when the confetti was around. Who brought it in? Grant? And it would be only your body for days/weeks after! Standing at the traffic lights, having a sneeze, and *bang* there's a halo of confetti on the footpath - a week after the match.
It was good times in the Bloc, in it's heyday - you'd have to get there pretty early to get a spot.....or be one of the "main" guys, and you could turn up late and you'd get pulled in (which was lucky for me). One game I turned up from cricket (long time player) with my pads on and in full whites - luckily the cricket match was washed out and I shot off to Mt Smart
We all went down to Wellington (twice?) - couldn't get into the Cake Tin so we had a sit down protest till CT talked the goons into letting us in. I remember people looking at us on the concourse, with our Bloc 5 shirts on, saying "there's those guys"....that was a bit cool. And singing Auckland Kingz, while the Brooklyn boys were throwing shark at us, and Rich trying to shoosh me. Another time, we stayed at some backpackers the other side of town once, and Rich and I were the last ones back and we forgot the code to get in, so we had ring and wake someone up (cant remember who). The dorm door was a curtain, and when you pulled it back the odour of a dozen smelly guys made you wish you were still on Lambton Quay......I somehow pulled both calf muscles overnight, and flew back the next day (Sat morning) and played cricket by fielding in the same spot all game and occasionally falling over.
The trip to Hamilton was fun too, we sung "Shake It Up Baby" for what seemed like half an hour, everyone taking turns at being the leader.
The Stand Up forum was a good little site, and everyone knew each other (as Brandon said earlier). A lot of us were about the same age, give or take, and would go to each others houses......we would also go into town to watch away matches, and grab a kebab (my first kebab!). That's where I started calling Jeremy Christie "Plodder", and came up with the Andy Bluhm chant (a fan fave, even though it was quickly taken off the site by Stack). There was someone calling himself "carefree" who only seemed to be on there to moan about us.....
Brandon started that "How do you spell "referee" chant.....that was a bit on the nose hahahaha. As was my chant about General Pinochet during the Chile U23 match
I know Wynton comes in for a lot of stick, but he was all class on the field - was it against Melbourne he scored a double to win the match? That was a hell of a match, in the rain. Wynton Rufer is easily the best player to play for an NZ club side in Aussie.
It was really sad what happened in the end.....I remember I got us special permission to stand on the "opposite" side of the ground at Mt Smart, just as it was getting torn down for a 1982 All Whites Appreciation Day. Kingz probably lost that match. The ground announcer said "thank you to the 1200 people who turned up", but as we looked over to the main stand - no lie, there was no more than 40 people.
In the end, the Hamilton peeps didn't come up - I think Dave moved to Wellington by then. Everyone started to give up. Bloc 5 was literally 5 people at the end; Ric and Mike, me and Karl, and Milts. And then Milts left......other people came in, but some of those guys were real dicks. Who was that young guy with blond hair?
Then they moved to NHS (was it then they took the Knights name?), and I just couldn't be arsed anymore.
When ACFC started, me, Karl, Rich and Mike met up in Little India in Kingsland and I suggested that we start a new Bloc.....I wanted to call it something lame like the B-Team or something.....Rich (and Mike?) came up with the 248 Service Crew pretty soon after, and the rest is history. I went to the first match, but never went back - playing cricket clashed with the times, and I preferred to be sending down some dobblies.....but it wasn't the same, not for me anyway.
I'd need to look at some old postings, or talk to guys to remember a lot more.....but they were good days. Even though the Kingz were really shark, and the crowds were really shark, and everything was just generally shark......they were real good times.....Rich and Mike deserve a lot of credit for virtually inventing the "NZ football fan" as we now know it. Those guys, along with many others who I wont name for fear of missing someone out, really took NZ sports crowd support to a whole new level (without whom I doubt the YF would be around in it's present form - in some form, no doubt, but maybe a lesser form)
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I just remembered something 10 mins after posting this - remember when Rich met that bird......and she was alright......and bam, he's off to a wine-tasting on Waiheke instead of being at the Kingzfor a week.....so none of us are infallible! haha
