Rory Fallon will line up for the All Whites against Mexico this week, his first international since that goal against Bahrain. Michael Brown talks to a player who for years was best known as Kevin Fallon's son.
Rory Fallon soon found his dad. With a cigar in one hand and a massive grin etched on his face, it was hard for Kevin to hide his delight.
"You've just scored a $10 million goal," Kevin blurted out to his son as they embraced amid euphoric scenes at Westpac Stadium.
It hadn't dawned on Rory. Something much bigger had happened, like qualifying for the World Cup for the first time since 1982, but it was hard to ignore the financial implications.
Only two years previously, New Zealand Football were virtually bankrupt. Fallon's goal against Bahrain changed everything and secured the immediate future of football in this country.
It also changed Fallon. In 90 minutes of football, and more specifically one header, he had become a national hero.
Throughout his life he had been known as Rory Fallon, son of Kevin. Now it isn't inconceivable, especially as 1982 fades with new generations of football fans, for the roles to be reversed.
His goal against Bahrain reawakened a game that had been slumbering for 28 years. Like the first time New Zealand qualified for a World Cup, a Fallon had played a big hand in getting the All Whites there.
It was a poignant moment as father and son embraced. It was almost like the baton was being passed from one generation to the next. The past was now the present.
* * *
When Rory Fallon boarded the flight that took him to England, it was with some relief that he left New Zealand.
In fact, he held some bitterness about the country of his birth.
"When I left New Zealand, I was sick of the country," the 27-year-old striker says from his Plymouth home, "and I was sick of New Zealand football. The game was stuck in a rut. It was stuck in the '80s. I was disillusioned with New Zealand and the way the game was being run and didn't want to be involved."
The year was 1998. He was 16 and on his way to start life as a youth apprentice with Championship side Barnsley.
He always felt football would take him to England but being Kevin Fallon's son was not always easy. It came with its own pressures and a lot of the baggage thrown Kevin's way also stuck to his son.
But Rory was different to other kids on a football field. He was sometimes years ahead of his peers, largely because of the daily training sessions he had with his dad from the age of nine. His brother Sean had done the same and that helped him secure a contract with English giants Liverpool.
"Dad was hard on me when he was coaching me at Mt Albert Grammar because he didn't want the other kids to think I was the favourite. At the start, it was tough and I didn't understand it but it made me stronger. It thickened my skin.
"Because I was a Fallon, I always had this thing built into me. It was the Fallons against the world. I was one of those who always felt persecuted. But he got into my head and said these same people [who were critical] would pay to come and watch me play one day. He built a belief in me.
"I had to play with people a lot older than me because I was better than guys my own age. I had the edge on them. Looking back, people thought I was quite arrogant but I don't think it was arrogance. I just had a massive self-belief in my ability.
"My dad was a massive influence on me. He can talk all day about football and even at dinner, he was explaining formations with the pepper grinders. Looking back, it was like being in an academy because football was 24/7. It made me ready for what came."
What followed were the highs and lows of football. He succeeded and then failed in five years at Barnsley and almost found himself on the scrapheap with countless other young footballers whose dreams are shattered.
His fortunes improved after a move to Swindon and he had a good first season with the League One outfit. The second season, though, was another struggle as the goals dried up.
Then something changed, something that would transform Fallon's life on and off the field. He found God.
* * *
British tabloids have made an industry out of wayward footballers.
John Terry and Ashley Cole's "form away from home" has become bigger news than more worthy stories like Afghanistan and Commonwealth Games security. Many players feel untouchable because of their inflated wallets and egos.
Rory Fallon was never a 'bad boy'. He never fell off the rails or became embroiled in a drunken row but he is the first to admit he did not have his priorities right.
"I was living for the weekend," he explains. "I would be thinking about my game and then what I was going to do that night. I would go out on the town. I drank too much and went partying, clubbing. It was the norm.
"At Barnsley, Swindon and Swansea, I was in three young teams. I had a little bit of cash and I was bored. But I was a kid. And I wasn't 100 per cent focused on my football. I had to break out of it. I knew I could play to a good level but I wasn't giving myself a chance."
It was during his time with Swindon that he broke up with his girlfriend and moved in with a team-mate. Something drew Fallon to church with him and he immediately felt at home. He was eventually baptised in January 2008 but something else changed.
"All of a sudden I was banging in goals. I was on fire," Fallon says excitedly.
"That attracted a lot of interest from other teams and Nottingham Forest and Swansea came in for me. I really wanted to go to Forest but Swansea put in a higher bid and I went there [for a club record £300,000]. I thank God I went there because I met my future wife. It was all part of the master plan.
"I don't care if people mock me [about my faith]. I'm not a Bible basher and I'm not going to tell people they should repent their sins or they're going to hell but if someone asks me about God and Jesus, I will tell them.
"I felt that God was saying to me that I wasn't giving football 100 per cent and I was letting my career slip through my fingers. After that, football was my No 1 focus and all these things started changing for me. People will say it was a coincidence but I don't believe that."
Whether it was by design or luck is a matter of belief but one of the things that changed for Fallon would come to have a dramatic influence on New Zealand football.
* * *
Rory Fallon played a host of youth internationals for England.
Unlike most of his team-mates, he didn't have grand aspirations to play for the full England side one day. He was realistic enough to know he would have to be a special player among some of the game's elite to achieve that.
He didn't, though, turn down the chance to play for England when it came along. At the same time, his dad was coach of the New Zealand under-17s about to play in the 1999 World Cup. Kevin asked Rory if he would play for New Zealand.
He turned it down in favour of England. It was a decision he now regrets.
"It was a massive decision [to choose England] because I really wanted to play for my dad [at the Under-17 World Cup]," he says.
"When I look back on it, it was a massive regret. I got to play with some great players like Jermaine Defoe and Jermaine Jenas but I never felt like I belonged. It never felt right and I didn't feel like I could be myself because I came from a different place, a different mentality.
"I played for England until under-20s and when I stopped playing for them, I wasn't too fussed. What had been important was trying to make a name for myself and I think I did that."
Fallon could still have pledged his allegiance to New Zealand before he turned 21 but that deadline slipped by. It seemed his chance to ever play for the All Whites was gone. That was until Fifa changed the rules. It was, as Fallon says, another gift from God.
"When I heard about it, I knew this was my chance. As soon as [coach] Ricki Herbert rang and asked me, I said, 'I'm there'. When I went on that first tour [to Jordan last year], it felt right. It felt like I was wearing an old T-shirt. I was playing again with guys I played with as a kid. It was brilliant."
Not as good as what was to come.
* * *
Not once did Fallon contemplate failure to qualify for the World Cup.
"I just knew we were going to do it," he says. "Why would God have let me have this opportunity to play for New Zealand otherwise? He's not going to send me to play a couple of friendlies. I was going to a World Cup."
His goal against Bahrain has been played countless times and will get even more air time as June's World Cup approaches in much the same way Grant Turner's header against Australia and Wynton Rufer's strike against China in 1982 have become iconic.
Fallon remembers everything about that day except scoring that goal. He remembers feeling like his head was a magnet as it met the ball. He remembers wheeling away in celebration as his team-mates mobbed him. But little else.
Instantly, he was a hero along with goalkeeper Mark Paston who saved the second-half penalty. They were the talk of playgrounds, football clubs and workplaces around the country.
Fallon joined his jubilant All Whites team-mates in the street parade through downtown Wellington the following day but boarded a plane almost straight away to get back to his day job. In this instance, it was battling relegation.
"It was quickly back to reality," he says. "I was exhausted but everyone wanted a little piece of me - media, sponsors.
"I would have loved to have been able to stay in New Zealand to soak it all up a bit because people were saying the place was going mad and they were replaying the game on TV every day.
"Loads of kids wrote to New Zealand Football and they sent them on but we were never really knew the extent of celebrations in New Zealand. I have a different impression of the country now than when I left all those years ago."
Sadly, Fallon's reputation has been dented in recent weeks. He walked into a controversy over his commitment to the All Whites when he told British media he wanted to help Plymouth fight relegation from the Championship rather than play for New Zealand in their friendly against Mexico in Los Angeles on Thursday (NZT).
"Plymouth is my No 1 [priority], so it's really his [Plymouth manager Paul Mariner] decision," Fallon said last month. "I've put it in his hands. I told him I wouldn't be upset if he didn't let me go, because I know he wants me 100 per cent for the games around that time.
"The problem with friendlies is that you can pick up injuries and I'm not really a friendly type of player. I'm all or nothing with the way I play."
It was an understandable position, especially as others had missed internationals in the past, but a PR disaster.
Most in New Zealand don't understand, nor care about, the club versus country debate that rages in England.
What they believe is that country should come first, especially with the All Whites preparing for their first World Cup in 28 years, and Fallon's comments did little to suggest that was the case.
It also caused angst among NZF, who demanded Fallon's release given the game fell in an international window and they also said he risked his World Cup place if he didn't show.
They were also unimpressed when Plymouth complained about Fallon's travel plans, believing the player was flying economy when he was booked to fly business.
"It was disappointing," Fallon says of the whole episode. "I don't think people realise the pressures teams come under here with the threat of relegation. It's such a fragile time in the club's history.
"But I also see it from the public's point of view. I am 100 per cent for New Zealand. There are no worries about that. After that Bahrain game, I want more. I love playing for New Zealand. I don't really understand why there's such an uproar about it.
"I don't really worry what people [in New Zealand] think of me because I don't really have a reputation there anyway. For years, I was known as Kevin Fallon's son. Scoring that goal put me massively in the spotlight. For people to get angry with me is uncalled for."
All will be forgotten soon enough. There will be another controversy or another event which will distract people. And then there will be the World Cup itself - the Greatest Show on Earth.
Fallon can't quite believe he's going. He never thought he would go to a World Cup after choosing England over New Zealand.
The All Whites need him in South Africa. They need his physical presence, his ability in the air and they need him to score goals if they are to achieve credibility. Fallon, though, has more lofty ambitions.
"I believe our group and England's are probably the easiest at the World Cup," he says. "There are a lot harder groups than ours. Italy will get through, that is a given, so the battle is for the second spot.
"New Zealand, Paraguay, Slovakia; it's a toss-up. That's the beautiful thing about football. It's who wants it the most.
"I have a feeling that something brilliant is going to happen. It might sound crazy, but I do."
NZ vs Mexico
* Thursday, 5pm (NZT), Los Angeles, United States
* This will be the second international between the two countries. New Zealand beat Mexico 4-0 in Auckland in 1980 with goals from Brian Turner (2), Grant Turner and Steve Wooddin. It was a match that many regard as the start of the All Whites' successful World Cup campaign under John Adshead and Kevin Fallon.
* NZ squad - Goalkeepers: Glen Moss (Melbourne Victory), James Bannatyne (Team Wellington).
Defenders: Tony Lochhead (Wellington Phoenix), Andrew Boyens (New York Red Bulls), Steven Old (Kilmarnock), Ben Sigmund (Wellington Phoenix), Tommy Smith (Brentford).
Midfielders: Andy Barron (Team Wellington), Leo Bertos (Wellington Phoenix), Tim Brown (Wellington Phoenix), Simon Elliott (San Jose Earthquakes), Michael McGlinchey (Motherwell), Craig Henderson (Mjallby AIF, Sweden).
Forwards: Shane Smeltz (Gold Coast United), Rory Fallon (Plymouth Argyle), Chris Killen (Middlesbrough), Chris Wood (West Bromwich Albion).
