Club's unbeaten record comes to an end

HOW many clubs can claim they have not been beaten on their home soil for two years? Not many, if any.

Many clubs throughout Northland have a strong heritage and reputation connected to them.

Whether it be for wins, losses, sin-binnings, bogey teams, scorelines or whatever. For Central Brown football, a proud record of being undefeated for two years was their 'thing' to play for.

Some people would argue there needs to be more clubs with Central Brown's record, after all isn't playing at a team's home ground meant to be one of the hardest places to win?

When I caught wind of Central Brown's proud record, I thought "Surely they can't keep going, two years is a long time to go without losing". And sadly, I was proved right.

Two weeks ago today, they were beaten by Kerikeri, who are top of the table, 2-nil. And, after speaking to Central Brown captain Jake Mabbett it makes sense.

Mabbett explained to me that although he was disappointed to see the record slip, it was probably on the cards.

"To be honest we knew it was eventually going to come [the loss].

"It more so gets under your skin the way we lost the game, [but] I think it's like anything that [defending a winning record] you need a bit of luck.

"We've had games where we've played worse than we did against Kerikeri and snuck through. It was just one of those games. It was a bit disappointing, but like any record like that, everyone was coming to play with the goal of taking that record from us."

I guess what short-changes Central Brown slightly is the lack of training they have been able to do on their pitch of late due to conditions, drainage, and the number of teams which have to share the one ground.

It'd be like someone telling me I'm not able to train in the pool more than once a week and expect me to defend my unbeaten record each week for two months of the season.

Mabbett said: "We can't train at the moment, because we've wrecked our field and we're only getting one training a week in a gym, [but] the same thing happened last year [with the field being ripped up].

"You can get a bit of fitness out of it [gym session training] but you can't get the combinations going, and with football you need the space to get things going. But, at the moment with our ground being closed we're only getting one game in a gym. It's not really ideal for what we're trying to achieve."

With four teams playing on the single Central Brown field, three men's and one women's, it's taking a hammering. Does that mean it's time for the Whangarei District Council to step in and give the ground a revamp?

It's obvious from Central Brown's winning record they are a team who are proud of their home ground, what do you think?

Let us know your club's proud history or heritage stories at sports@northernadvocate.co.nz