Medals for all as season celebrated
“Every player gets a medal, that way they will all feel like champions.”
The Kaitaia United AFC junior football organisation once again operated under this kaupapa for its end-of-season prizegiving at the Kaitaia Primary School hall on a recent Saturday morning.
With an estimated 16 sides playing across three grades (under-8s, 10s and 13s) during the winter campaign, there were also individual awards for every team’s MVP, Sportsmanship and Most Improved; Knockout Cup title wins for Eastern Marlins (U8s), Ahipara Assassins (U10s) and Te Rarawa (U13s) were acknowledged; while honour awards were presented to those youth who took coaching and referee roles and/ or made skill centre selection.
The event also allowed local coaches to thank everyone for getting in behind their teams. One of the more notable speeches came from Troy Lewis, who had taken on the job of knitting Kaitaia Unique — a ragtag unit made up of leftover players from other teams — into a formidable competitive unit, and who was eventually rewarded when the side finished runners-up in the 13th grade.
“Thanks for coming to support us, our tamariki. We love them. They become part of our hearts. All of our children make a little dent in our hearts for doing what they do, and listening to us.” KUAFC honour award recipients included Rico Margison, Reuben Nemeroff, Callum Greenall, Aaron Hartnell, Danny Greenall, Jess McCarthny, Baden Takimoana and (above left) Kian Milne shown with long-serving organisation stalwart, Bonnie Greenall.
Lewis admitted it was difficult handing out the aforementioned individual awards because football was all about team play.
In attendance, albeit in an informal capacity, was Far North Mayor John Carter along with James Coleman, the Northern Football Federation’s Far North Development Officer. Both left before proceedings had been fully wound up to make it to the Kaikohe AFC football prizegiving; with Coleman planning to
also make it to the Kerikeri FC juniors prizegiving later that afternoon.
The occasion was wrapped up shortly before noon with former KUAFC chairman Brendon Morrissey being presented with a gift from the Te Rarawa club as a gesture of thanks for all the work he had put in behind the scenes this year to ensure a smoothly run competition.
Morrissey deflected praise by noting much of that had been due to the diligence of a hard-working committee
which he was also part of.
He noted that much of the success of the year — which saw numbers make a slight but welcome improvement from the past two seasons — was due to buy-in from the organisation’s main shareholders.
“Sideline [behaviour] has been superb again this year. I just want to say thanks to everyone and I am looking forward to seeing everyone next year,” Morrissey said.