Paul Lewis: Knights don't cut the mustard

In the movie Groundhog Day, Bill Murray winds up in a never-ending repetition of the day he has just had. He is the only one who realises that the current day is exactly the same as the day before, in every detail. In this comedy-fable, Murray plays a cynical TV weatherman on assignment who is locked into the frustration of an endlessly repeating day - until he learns to be a better person.

Enter John Adshead and the NZ Knights who are locked in their own version of Groundhog Day - a repeating scenario of endless frustration where the Knights wake up, travel to a football ground, get beaten and go home. Then it happens all over again.

Into the midst of this repeating horror strides the new Knights CEO, Steve O'Hara, a man who would be best advised to heed the counsel of former Prime Minister Keith Holyoake to new MPs in the days when New Zealand had a proper Parliament (as opposed to a bazaar for the baubles of office for Winston Peters). Kiwi Keith used to say to the newcomers: "Breathe through your nose a lot."

Mr O'Hara unfortunately exhaled orally this week with an impassioned and wonderfully naive plea for the New Zealand media to write "positive" stories about the Knights. He raised hackles by suggesting New Zealand media had been negative since the Knights' first moments and that there were lots of "good stories" that we could be writing. Presumably he means in addition to the 13 run by the Herald on Sunday which were uniformly positive and reflected the excitement of the football fraternity in a New Zealand team which might do well in the A-League.

The Knights then added injury to insult by holding a press conference to announce: Nothing. Nobody would be resigning, apparently. Hold the middle page.

So, with this week's press conference, the Knights added off-field mismanagement to on-field recurring nightmares. The idea was to end speculation over Adshead's future. But good communications practice is normally to (a) confront the issue and (b) say what you're going to do to fix it.

Adshead and the Knights are absolutely cracking at (a). But (b)? The sad fact is that the Knights can't buy or sell any players until the January transfer window - and there will be only five games left in the season. The Knights just aren't good enough. The proof was there again in the 4-2 loss to Newcastle on Friday.

The players aren't good enough and the coaching staff seem unable to lift them to a higher plane.

They are also suffering from what might be called Crouch Syndrome. Like Liverpool's beanpole striker, they have embraced a bizarre new dimension: strikers who don't score goals. They manage a few pleasing passages of play but are ultimately in a different league: the B-League.

Some fingers point at Adshead and say that his choices of footballers were simply not good enough. Others point at assistant coach Tommy Mason. No matter whose fault it is, the Knights are stuck with what they have got.

Which makes it even more remarkable that Mr O'Hara would have a bit of a slaver at the media. Imagine Sir Alex Ferguson, after Manchester United were beaten 4-1 by Middlesbrough last weekend, savaging the media for not being positive enough.

Fergie's famous hairdryer is unplugged if the boys on the pitch aren't doing the business, Mr O'Hara.

I attended a Charity Shield clash a few years ago between Chelsea and Manchester United. In a thronging Wembley, we could only get tickets to the Chelsea end. In those days - before they started winning everything and went legit - Chelsea's fans had a bad name and were not beyond causing bother and throwing monkey noises and similar insults at visiting players whose parents were not Caucasian. And I had my two daughters in tow for their first big match.

When United captain Roy Keane kicked someone up in the air and was sent off - ah, Royston, the soul of discretion and prawn sandwiches - the Chelsea crowd reacted with bitter glee and chants. My daughters had not quite got their ears around the London accents and one asked me: "Dad, why are they singing: 'You dirty roll of mustard'?" Football fans, particularly those familiar with British football chants, will join the dots and understand why it has become a longstanding family joke.

Chelsea are being pilloried for making the Premiership boring by assembling an expensive team of foreigners who win everything.

In Albany, the Knights are being pilloried for assembling an expensive team of foreigners who win nothing - and who are stuck in a Groundhog Day where the media are all dirty rolls of mustard.