Takapuna

Winston Reid first kicked a ball at Takapuna at the age of four, before his family left New Zealand and he moved on to Denmark at ten. He never played a senior match for the club, and his path took him to West Ham United and the New Zealand national team, but the connection is one Takapuna still points to. Jeff Campbell is the closer thread: he came through Takapuna, won 16 caps and scored five goals for New Zealand between 2000 and 2008, then returned to play for the club itself from 2011 to 2017, with his brother Scott also turning out in the same colours.

Takapuna AFC, based in the Auckland suburb of Takapuna, started out in 1964 as Takapuna City AFC before shortening its name. Their one Northern League First Division title came in 1971, their first attempt at the competition. A decade later they took their only shot at the national stage, entering the New Zealand National Soccer League in 1981, only to be relegated after a single season. In the Chatham Cup, the country's oldest knockout competition, their furthest run took them to the semi-finals, first in 1980 and again in 1999.

They play in yellow shirts with blue shorts and socks, and the nickname Taka has stuck. Home games are at Taharoto Park, which holds 1,000, a small ground for a club now competing in the NRFL Championship rather than the top flight it briefly reached in the early 1980s.

Playing week to week in the Auckland-based Northern League puts Takapuna up against the other clubs of the region who have spent decades trading places between it and the national league.