Unrequited Love

There's this FIFA Under-17 Women's World Cup taking place in New Zealand just now. And good on them. Soccer is a bit underrated here; I understand it used to be that only kids who weren't big/good enough to play Rugby played soccer. With better World Cup broadcasts, a professional NZ team joining the Australian league, the Great Beckham gracing us with a visit last year or earlier this year, more mothers being vocal about the violence of and injuries from rugby, and finally recent immigrants trying to remedy the situation, the game has become markedly more popular even in the years we've been here. And NZ FIFA head or some such was pleased we are hosting the first of these Women's World Cup; he got a bit giddy on the radio and went as far as mentioning if/when Australia puts in a bid for The (real) World Cup, we will fully support them. Which would we'd like to co-host, which would mean we'd like to see a couple of games played in New Zealand, I would have thought... But wait. Should we build such high expectations only to be let down again?

For years preceding the Rugby (Union) World Cup 2003 in Australia, we negotiated numbers and dates and games because it was supposed to be a jointly-hosted event and we looked under our collective couches to scrape money to upgrade facilities, until suddenly, Australia dropped us. I can't remember the details, but NZRFU might have been at fault, because we reneged or opposed the International Rugby Board's (not Australia's) clean stadia policy, where advertising of any sort had to be removed within x kilometers of all stadiums hosting any of the games, and/or there was something about the already sold season tickets and the ticket holders' rights to their corporate seats. Anyway, hot potato, Aussies host a great Cup, we're left kicking the dirt under our feet.

Last year when New Zealand went to bid for the 2011 World Cup solo, (commonly agreed here to be the last time New Zealand could afford to host the event, seeing as Rugby is growing and if it gets much bigger it'd be unaffordable for a small country like us,) Australia supported Japan's bid citing the necessity to spread the sport in Asia to increase the number of players and playing nations.

Here in little old Nelson, the city council wanted to upgrade our Trafalgar Park so it's good enough to have one or few of the earlier games in 2011, and there's a city councilperson of Italian descent trying to make Nelson the host of the Italian team. The refurbishment was finally voted on last week, and we're going ahead with the cheap upgrade option, because no matter how rugby mad some of the councilors are, (Nelson is not as big on rugby as some other parts of All Black Land), the latest economic mood forced the powers that be to be reasonable.

In better times, I would have supported the upgrade, because Kiwis do love sports, both playing and watching, and it isn't just for rugby, we would have had bigger concerts as well. But the elderly, for starters, have been seriously struggling the last four or five years with the continued rates (residence tax?) hikes, so I'm glad good sense prevailed.

Back to soccer, and while I'd love to see World Cup level soccer games taking place in New Zealand, (they'd be in Auckland, and perhaps in Christchurch or Welly if we're lucky...) I kept thinking of something I know all too well: unrequited love. We'll see.

Best of luck to all the young, aspiring women, nevertheless.