Soccer: The troubled journey of the Kingz

The Football Kingz fans are a vocal lot. They continually rally others with their "Stand Up If You Love The Kingz" catchcry.

But is their patience starting to wear thin?

The supporters are right behind the fledgling, Auckland-based NSL team, what they stand for and what they hope to achieve.

Out front the results suck. It has not been pretty. In fact, it has been downright ugly for obvious reasons.

Coaching turmoil, player problems and general uncertainty all contributed to the disaster which left the side at the bottom of the heap four weeks into the new season.

But the Kingz, surely, are much more than a four-week wonder.

From a germ of an idea in the 1990s when getting a team into the Australian National Soccer League was first mooted, it grew, not quickly, but to a point where, on October 1, 1999, at North Harbour Stadium, the Football Kingz played Carlton.

But even before the first ball in that game - lost 3-0 to a club no longer in existence - there was controversy.

The Kingz were threatened by the Sydney Kings basketball franchise to change their name "or else." A compromise was eventually reached.

The early driving force came from a large group who built on ideas by then Waitakere City chairman Rex Dawkins, who was not in favour of moves by the New Zealand Football Association chairman Harry Dods to scrap the national league in favour of a superclub competition.

Later, at a clandestine airport meeting between the chairman of the Counties Manukau association, Noel Robinson, Auckland deputy chairman Bill Anderson and Soccer Australia chairman David Hill, there came a tentative invitation for a New Zealand-based team to play in the NSL.

Further meetings followed and Robinson, John Batty, Chris Turner and Noel Barkley were charged with getting it altogether and preparing the Kingz for battle.

Batty provided the business and football administration background, Barkley the playing and business acumen, Robinson the football administrative nous and Turner the enthusiasm.

Turner's lawyer Ted Midlane joined when the company was formed.

Keen to have Wynton Rufer as a player, the board struck a deal which installed him as player-coach and his brother, Shane, as assistant.

They signed David Moya and Aaron Silva from Chile and lured Marcus Stergiopoulos, Dino Mennillo and Levent Osman across the Tasman.

Later, they brought in John Lammers to bolster (unsuccessfully) a flagging late-season effort.

Robinson, after threatening legal action and eventually being paid for his shares, is, like most of those first-season players, long gone. As is Barkley.

Batty, too, needed the intervention of the courts to be paid the $40,000-$50,000 he was owed for work done in that first season. He remains a minority shareholder.

Only Turner and Midlane remain on the board.

Within weeks of their first game of the 1999-2000 season, the cracks started to appear. Despite assurances from Turner and Midlane that sponsorship was in place, financial problems soon emerged. In December, players were not paid.

By the end of the season, and with Batty's problem common knowledge, his son Jason was left on the sideline, replaced by stand-in Queenslander Daniel Duke.

The younger Batty also needed legal assistance to claim money owed for breach of a two-year contract.

By April last year, Sky Television had taken over as the major shareholder and owner.

The second season also began shakily, with the team beaten 2-0 by Sydney Olympic in a game notable for the non-selection of Argentine goalkeeper Julio Cuello, famous for the "dog advert" but brought to the club by the Rufers "sight unseen".

Sky appointed Simon Massey chief executive, but he struggled.

Turner happily continued to hog the limelight as club spokesman and, when Massey was let go, he stepped up from general manager to chief executive.

Turner has been the great survivor. Many question whether this has been good or bad.

"The role of the chief executive is the key," said former Kingz striker and now Sky commentator Fred de Jong.

"Simon Massey was a big disappointment and Chris Turner hasn't got the experience to meet the demands of the role."

De Jong also questions the part played by the Rufers.

"They should not be there. It was a cop-out having Shane Rufer working with Petersen, but he, obviously, wanted Wynton as a player."

De Jong urged Sky to make some hard decision.

"You have to wonder how much longer they are going to pour money into a pit. But, without Sky, the Kingz would really be struggling, although I'm sure Sky don't really want to own the club."

De Jong said the Kingz were crying out for someone to step in and run it as a football club.

"Someone to bridge the gap between the club and the players. That should be the coach, but Wynton and Shane struggled to do that. They need someone to dictate the culture."

But, like many, de Jong is adamant there is a need for the Football Kingz to continue - and be successful.

"You would not have guys such as Noah Hickey and Lee Jones playing in Finland or Ivan Vicelich in Holland if it wasn't for the Kingz," de Jong said. "But as things stand at the moment, they are making a pig's ear of it."

Former All White Brian Turner said: "Of course we need the Kingz. They are the next step under the national team. They provide a stepping stone but I would like to see other players such as Paul Hobson and Paul Bindery given a chance."

Brian Turner also questions off-field issues.

"Wynton and Shane Rufer were part of the baggage," Turner said. "When Mike Petersen was appointed he, as the new man, should have brought in his own people. Doing what they [the Kingz board] did was fatal. Wynton Rufer is not bigger than the Football Kingz."

Like others, Turner questions the role played by former All Blacks coach (and Kingz/Sky board member) John Hart at the Kingz.

"People such as John Hart and John Fellett can't make calls on soccer matters. Only Chris Turner can make these, and I would say for the past six or nine months he hasn't got very much right.

"They are a bomb waiting to go off and prove they can be successful, but no one knows how to trigger it," Brian Turner said.

"In those first two seasons they flattered to deceive. The people involved should be called to account.

"I see the next appointment [coach/football manager] as absolutely crucial. It is their last chance to get it right."

The walkout by controversial midfielder Con Boutsianis had a huge effect off and on the field and eventually led to Petersen following suit.

Boutsianis, who Petersen brought to the Kingz, would have played a significant role and may have helped to avert the disastrous start to the season.

Instead, he departed without kicking a ball and the club is now embroiled in a contract wrangle with the player and his former club, South Melbourne.

New Zealand Soccer chief executive Bill MacGowan, who has non-voting rights on the Kingz board but seems to be left off the guest list at crucial meetings, said the Kingz were vital in providing a profile for soccer in New Zealand.

"But it is all about winning," MacGowan said. "The Kingz have their games shown on television for 25 weeks a year which is something we can't expect from the domestic game."

MacGowan would not, understandably, be drawn on off-field issues.

As the Kingz face the 19 remaining games of their third season they can still count on reasonable support. For how long depends on results - and one feels - some important off-field decisions.