Former All Whites captain Bert Ormond dies

NZ football lost a legend of the game on Wednesday.

NZ football lost a legend of the game on Wednesday 15 November when former All White captain Bert Ormond passed away, aged 87.

Ormond was a football pioneer who had a transformative impact on NZ football.

He emigrated to NZ in 1961 after a successful playing career in Scotland where he played for Falkirk, Airdrie and Dumbarton scoring 34 goals in 83 appearances, playing in those days as an inside forward.

Initially Bert and his family settled in Gisborne and he immediately joined Eastern Union, a football powerhouse in those days, and then Gisborne Thistle where he left a rich footballing legacy. In 1964 the Ormond family moved to West Auckland which is where Bert began a very successful playing and coaching career with Blockhouse Bay, and later in his successful coaching career with Mt Roskill.

Bert first represented NZ in 1961 shortly after arriving from Scotland scoring against New Caledonia, and in 1964 he had the honour of captaining New Zealand on its 15 match World Tour. In total he played in 21 Internationals for New Zealand, seventeen of them while he was a member of Blockhouse Bay.

Ormond was more than a great footballer and coach he was also a natural as a weekly columnist who didn't mind speaking his mind. Bert was one of the sport's first high profile "personalities", writing a weekly column in the Sunday News (then the highest circulation weekend paper) in the 1970s, and helping popularise the sport to a wider audience.

Over that first season and throughout his NL coaching career he became one of the best known names in NZ football as every paper and sports' magazine in the country sought his comments before and after every game.

In November 2016, Ormond was awarded the Friends of Football Medal of Excellence in recognition of his playing, coaching and media work in New Zealand football.