The pitch has been marked out, the floodlights tested, the kunekune pigs shooed off the field - so it's all go for the world's first football tournament of 2011.
Around 8.30pm tonight up to eight teams will take to an improvised stadium north of Kaeo for an annual tradition that celebrates
its 20th anniversary tonight.
The plan is for the final match of the round-robin tournament to be played just after midnight.
That would make it not just the world's first soccer tournament of 2011, it's more than likely the first match to be played anywhere on the planet in the New Year.
Organiser Stefano Virgili, who owns Kahoe Farms Hostel on State Highway 10 north of Kaeo with his wife, Lyndsay, said this year's tournament would also feature two high-powered football celebrities.
Guest of honour will be Kevin Fallon, assistant coach of the first All Whites team to reach the World Cup (Spain, 1982), current coach of the Mt Albert Grammar School side and father of Rory Fallon, whose goal against Bahrain won New Zealand a place at the 2010 World Cup.
Tonight's tournament will be refereed by Terry Hobin, United Soccer 1 league fixture manager for Auckland north.
Italian-born Mr Virgili, possibly Northland's most dedicated football fan, met his Kiwi wife in London and the pair moved to her family farm at Kahoe in 1990.
They opened the hostel and started the tournament the next year, originally as a New Year's Eve "kick-about" with car headlights trained on a paddock.
Now the hostel boasts a floodlit pitch with what Mr Virgili describes as a "natural grandstand"; a nearby shed is a virtual shrine to the beautiful game.
"Who knows, in another 20 years we might have a proper stadium," he said.
He expects 30-40 players to compete for the Virgili Cup tonight; a mix of family, friends and guests of at least eight nationalities.
But the emphasis is on fun rather than serious competition so each of the four-a-side teams will have a mix of age, gender and nationality.
