Football Kingz FC

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Football Kingz FC
Full nameFootball Kingz Football Club Ltd
Nickname(s)Kingz, Kingz FC, Auckland Kingz
Founded1999 (as Auckland Kingz Football Club)
Dissolved2004
Ground
National Soccer League

The Football Kingz were New Zealand's first professional football club. They played in the

A-League
.

History

Football Kingz FC (promoted as Auckland Kingz within Australia) joined the Australian National Soccer League in 1999 and proceeded to play in the last five seasons of the NSL, failing to qualify for the play-offs in every season. The club was originally to use the spelling of "Kings", however this was changed to the Kingz after receiving legal threats from Australian basketball team the Sydney Kings.[1]

The first season – 1999–2000

Their inaugural coach was OFC Player of the Century and former New Zealand international Wynton Rufer in a player-coach role, with his brother Shane as assistant coach. They played their inaugural game on the evening of 1 October 1999 at North Harbour Stadium in front of then the largest crowd to watch a club game in New Zealand. The game was played against Carlton SC and even though it resulted in a 0–3 loss was an enthralling start to the professional era in New Zealand. This first season would end up being the club's most successful with 15 wins. The team finished eighth of sixteen teams.

Season Two – 2000–2001

After an encouraging first season the club set out to improve its performance on and off the park. There were a number of foreign signings, mostly from

Newcastle Breakers
on 27 October 2000. The team again finished in eighth place, winning 12 games.

Season Three – 2001–2002

Seasons One and Two showed the potential of the team (they would turn out to be the most successful seasons from a professional New Zealand football team until the

Wollongong Wolves on 2 November 2001 was his last, walking out after it. A number of Australian players soon following him. Shane Rufer stepped in to become the club's caretaker manager. This tenure only lasted for two games but he achieved a win and draw from these games. Kevin Fallon
was announced as the new manager, but the damage to the club had already been done and it ended up finishing with the "wooden spoon" in 13th place, this costing Fallon his job.

Season Four – 2002–2003

After the previous season's poor form, the club's owners drastically slashed the club's budget.

Confederations Cup where the All Whites performed very well. As he had a reduced budget he recruited from around New Zealand introducing to the team Raf de Gregorio and Jeremy Christie. While the club had some very talented young players it struggled to compete but managed to achieve a better final position in the National Soccer League
than the season before, finishing 11 out of 13.

The final season – 2003–2004

The

Brisbane Strikers
.

All time records

  • Record victory: 5–1 vs
    Newcastle United
    (H), 26 October 2000
  • Record defeat: 0–7 vs
    Parramatta Power
    (A), 14 February 2003
  • Highest aggregate score: 9 goals: (2 games, both losses)
2–7 vs
Perth Glory
(H), 25 October 2001
4–5 vs South Melbourne (H), 15 March 2003
  • Record league attendance: 13,111 (vs
    Marconi Stallions
    16 March 2001)
  • Lowest league attendance: 1,057 (vs
    Northern Spirit FC
    27 February 2003)
Home attendance figures for the final season are not included
  • Longest winning streak: 3 games (15 November 2002 – 6 December 2002)
  • Longest undefeated streak: 7 games (23 February 2001 – 6 April 2001)
  • Longest losing streak: 7 games (15 March 2003 – 7 November 2003)
  • Longest winless streak: 9 games (29 November 2003 – 10 January 2004)
  • Most goals in a game: 4 –
    Northern Spirit
    (H), 27 September 2002
  • Most goals in a season: 12 – Dennis Ibrahim 2001–2002
  • All-time most appearances: 129 – Harry Ngata
  • All-time top scorer: 29 – Harry Ngata

National Soccer League

NSL seasonal results

Results of league and cup competitions by season
Season Division Pld W D L GF GA Pts Pos Finals Name(s) Goals
League Top goalscorer(s)
1999–2000 NSL 34 15 5 14 57 59 50 8th DNQ Chile Aaron Silva 11
2000–01 NSL 30 12 7 11 52 52 43 8th DNQ Germany Dennis Ibrahim 12
2001–02 NSL 24 3 5 16 28 58 14 13th DNQ New Zealand Paul Urlovic 9
2002–03 NSL 24 6 6 12 26 45 24 11th DNQ New Zealand Harry Ngata 8
2003–04 NSL 24 4 3 17 25 51 15 13th DNQ New Zealand Harry Ngata 8

All-time NSL win/loss

Club Pld Wins Draw Loss Goals For Goals Against Goal Diff
Adelaide Force
 10 8 1 1 6 20 −14
Adelaide United FC 2 0 0 2 1 4 −3
Brisbane Strikers
 10 4 2 4 16 18 −2
Canberra Cosmos
 4 2 0 2 8 6 2
Carlton S.C.
 4 2 1 1 7 4 3
Gippsland Falcons
 2/2 2/1 0/1 0/0 5/3 2/1 3/2
Marconi Stallions 10 5 1 4 17 14 3
Melbourne Knights 10 1 4 5 14 21 −7
Newcastle Breakers 2 0 1 1 1 2 −1
Newcastle United
 8 3 1 4 12 11 1
Northern Spirit
 10 2 0 8 16 23 −7
Parramatta Power
 10 4 1 5 16 26 −10
Perth Glory 10 1 1 8 12 33 −21
South Melbourne 10 3 1 6 12 26 −14
Sydney Olympic
 10 4 2 4 15 18 −3
Sydney United
 10 3 2 5 10 13 −3
Wollongong Wolves
 12 2 7 3 17 23 −6
Total 136 47 26 63 188 265 -77

Managers

Name Nat From To Record
P W D L F A GD Pts
Wynton Rufer New Zealand October 1999 April 2001 64 27 12 25 109 111 −2 91
Mike Petersena Australia October 2001 October 2001 4 0 1 3 6 14 −8 1
Shane Ruferb New Zealand November 2001 November 2001 2 1 1 0 4 3 1 4
Kevin Fallon England November 2001 April 2002 18 2 3 13 18 41 −23 9
Ken Dugdalec England September 2002 November 2003 32 7 7 18 36 63 −27 28
Tommy Mason New Zealand November 2003 February 2004 16 3 2 11 15 33 −18 11
Total October 1999 February 2004 136 40 26 70 188 265 -77 146

Player records

Most appearances

# Name Kingz career Appearances Goals
1 New Zealand Harry Ngata 1999–2003 129 29
2 New Zealand Chris Jackson 1999–2004 100 1
3 New Zealand Jonathan Perry 1999–2003 90 7
4
Jeff Campbell
 		1999–2004 76 2
5= New Zealand Mark Burton 2000–2004 69 3
5= Australia Levent Osman 1999–2002 69 2
7 New Zealand Paul Urlovic 2000–2003 59 16
8 New Zealand Michael Utting 1999–2000
2002–2004		 49 0
9= New Zealand Wynton Rufer 1999–2001 48 12
9= New Zealand Riki van Steeden 1999–2003 48 2

Most goals

# Name Kingz career Goals Appearances
1 New Zealand Harry Ngata 1999–2003 29 129
2 New Zealand Paul Urlovic 2000–2003 16 59
3 Chile Aaron Silva 1999–2001 13 32
4= Germany Dennis Ibrahim 2000–2001 12 24
4= New Zealand Wynton Rufer 1999–2001 12 48
6
Andy Vlahos
 		2001–2003 9 45

Notable players

Main article:
List of Football Kingz F.C. players

See also

Notes

a Caretaker manager during October 2001. b Caretaker manager for two games. c Resigned after eight games in 2003.

References

  1. ^ Long, David (17 November 2018). "New professional Australian team call themselves Phoenix". Stuff.co.nz. Retrieved 19 November 2018.

External links

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