White breaks MPL goal scoring record
Former national league striker Michael White bagged a hat-trick on Saturday, while writing himself into the Mainland Premier League record books.
The Nelson product, these days domiciled in Christchurch, surpassed Gareth Turnbull’s mark of 94 goals to become the MPL’s alltime leading goal-scorer.
White netted three second half goals in Cashmere Technical’s 8-0 thrashing of bottom placed Universities at Garrick Park to move into outright first with 96 strikes.
Welsh-born White started out his MPL career with Nelson Suburbs, scoring 28 goals for them between 2002-05.
He had another season with Nelson in 2012 and has featured for Ferrymead Bays, then Tech, in Christchurch since 2013.
He is no stranger to breaking MPL records, amassing 24 goals during the 2015 campaign with Bays, the most individual finishes in a season.
The 30-year-old also heads the list for most career hat-tricks with 11.
White is the competition’s leading goal-scorer this season with nine already.
While White stole the headlines in the second half, it was Canterbury United skipper and former All White Aaron Clapham who dominated in the opening 45 minutes.
Clapham nabbed an impressive four goals before halftime, including the game’s opening goal, which came from the penalty spot after a foul in the box on Lyle Matthysen.
After a quiet start to the season without their Canterbury national league players, four-time defending MPL champions Tech have found form over the past month.
Fourth placed Nelson Suburbs gained a much-needed 4-1 victory over FC Twenty11 in Christchurch, their first victory of the season on the artificial English Park turf. Suburbs had gained just one point from three previous trips to English Park in 2017, but seized control of the match early.
They scored two goals within the space of two minutes to build a comfortable 2-0 buffer.
Their leading goal scorer Sam Ayers fired them into a 1-0 advantage in the seventh minute, with player-coach Ben Wright netting shortly after to put them in charge.
Wright made it 3-0 just before halftime with his second to send Suburbs into the break full of confidence.
Callum Smith, FC Twenty’s top goal-scorer this season, pegged one back early in the second half, but that was as close as they would get.
Campbell Banks added the exclamation mark on a pleasing Suburbs display with their fourth right on fulltime.
Suburbs remain eight points back from leaders Ferrymead Bays, who drew 2-2 against Coastal Spirit in the east Christchurch derby.
Englishman Sam Orritt got Coastal off to the perfect start in just the third minute after his attempt at goal bounced awkwardly and deceived Bays’ goalkeeper Adam Highfield.
Bays were on level terms shortly after through promising youngster Seb Schacht, who debuted for Canterbury in the national league this summer.
Spirit took a 2-1 lead into halftime after a shot from centre back Zac Gordon deflected off a Bays’ player into the net in the 24th minute.
Bays set up an intriguing finish when Chris Murphy scored with a header midway through the second half to make it 2-2.
It was Bays, who finished the stronger of the sides, but they couldn’t beat Coastal goalkeeper and captain for the day, Eddie Ashton, in his 100th premier match for the club.
Nomads United recorded their third win of the season, overcoming struggling Western 2-0 in the later match at English Park.
In the women’s MPL, Coastal Spirit produced a second half surge to beat Tasman United 4-1 in Nelson on Sunday.
The teams went into halftime level at 1-1, but Coastal struck twice in the final 10 minutes to secure all three competition points.
Olivia Smith broke the deadlock in the 59th minute and then scored again to put Coastal up 3-1 with seven minutes left.
Matilda Dawson was Tasman’s goal scorer, netting on the half hour mark to cancel out Arna Roberts’ opener.
FC Twenty moved up to fourth with a 3-0 triumph over Universities with Frankie Morrow grabbing a double.