Clapham hangs up his boots
Retiring former All Whites midfielder Aaron Clapham says the highs outweigh the lows in a career which took him to the World Cup finals and saw him score on the Club World Cup finals stage.
The Canterbury United stalwart has announced he is hanging up his boots at 33 to devote himself to growing family responsibilities and a coaching career.
‘‘We’ve got our second child on the way, so that will be a big change as to where I will spend my time,’’ Clapham told Stuff yesterday.
Clapham, who has been ‘‘coaching in the youth space for five or six years’’, will continue in his director of football role at Christchurch club Cashmere Technical and is halfway through his A-level coaching licence.
He said he still loved football and would be ‘‘involved in some capacity all my life’’, but admitted ‘‘a little bit of the enjoyment had started to fade’’ at national league level.
‘‘I always promised myself if that ever happened I would want to step away a little. It wasn’t the games – I love playing football and physically, I feel could keep playing for a few more years – but it’s all the other things that accompany it, especially in the national league, which take up a lot of time.’’
Clapham – Canterbury United’s record scorer with 69 goals in 149 matches – earned 13 All Whites caps between 2010 and 2013, and was a late addition to New Zealand’s 2010 World Cup squad, though he did not get to play at the finals in South Africa.
He said his debut for New Zealand, against Honduras in
Auckland in 2010 following the World Cup tournament, would ‘‘always stand out’’ in a trove of treasured football memories.
‘‘That was a pretty special moment, I’d been on the bench so long I was starting to wonder, ‘is this going to happen?’’’
Clapham joined Football Ferns sister Sara as the family’s second international, a proud moment for parents Angie (a former Canterbury women’s football captain) and Ray (an ex-Canterbury women’s coach). ‘‘Playing soccer tennis with my sister in the backyard for hours and hours,’’ still rates highly among his favourite footballing recollections.
Clapham also rated as a ‘‘particular highlight’’ his first year with Canterbury United in
2009-10 after returning from four years in the American collegiate system. ‘‘We had a good, hard working team that year and I made a lot of great friends’’.
Clapham will always treasure his goal for Team Wellington at the Club World Cup finals in Abu Dhabi in 2018, as the Oceania champions lost a heartbreaking penalty shootout to United Arab Emirates champions Al Ain after a
3-3 draw. Clapham expertly swept home a ball from Andy Bevin for Wellington’s second goal.
‘‘That was a pretty amazing moment, to score a goal on the world stage.’’
He would have liked to have won a national league title, after losing two grand finals, with Canterbury United in 2010 and Team Wellington in 2019.
Clapham suffered multiple facial fractures and broke an eye socket, cheek and nose in the 2019 game, but he recovered to play for Canterbury United last summer and said the injury, while it was ‘‘a tough time for me and my family’’ had no bearing on his decision to retire.