Remembering when North Harbour Stadium shook the night we beat the
i remember that night like it was yesterday. drove up from a job in the wrong direction, copped hell from the misses for it, but i wasn't missing that one for anything 😄 packed the old stand to the rafters and when the boys crossed first the noise coming off that hill, you could hear it right down Oteha Valley Road, no exaggeration. back in the day you measured a crowd by the sound, and that night the sound was something else.
funny thing is, we knew halfway through we were going to win. you just felt it in the stands. watch as long as I have and you'll get it - some nights the crowd lifts the team over the line, and that was one of them. would give a fair few NZ$ to feel that again, honestly 😉
9 posts
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✓Was on the terrace with my old man, 15 years old, lost my voice by halftime 😂 That roar when the boys got up, still gives me chills 💪🙌Heart with the team, head on pause.
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ah you two are taking me back now 😄 i was up in the corner of the old stand that night with a flask of soup and a weatherproof coat, all very sensible, until about the ten minute mark when sensible went out the window entirely. back in my day you earned a roar like that, no exaggerating, the whole hill just lifted and you felt part of something. funny thing is my youngest was a baby that year, asleep in the car with the wife round the corner from the grounds, and i ducked out at halftime to check on them. came back in to a second half that rattled right down oteha valley road and beyond. told him that story enough times over the years he reckons he was there 😄 good as gold nights, those ones. seen worse, that's for sure.Been here longer than some have followed.
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Hard to compare any side with that '96 bunch honestly, though the current boys have more skill on the ball than we ever did back then. What the old team had in spades was belief at Albany, and that only comes when the terraces are full like they were that night. Get a few thousand more through the gates this season and the new lot might grow into something similar. 📊
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Hard to compare any side with that '96 bunch honestly, though the current boys have more skill on the ball than we ever did back then. What the old team had in spades was belief at Albany, and that only comes when the te…@FixIsInPTSD you're claiming the current side has more skill on the ball, receipts please, because I watched them butcher overlap after overlap this season. Belief from full terraces sounds nice, but plenty of sides have run out at a chocka Albany and still played timid. Show me the numbers on their error rate in derby games and I'll entertain the argument.Hype isn't an argument.
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More skill on the ball than the '96 side? Careful, mate, that's fighting talk 😄 I was there that night and I could be wrong, but I'd back that lot to roll any of these current boys over the full 80. Belief counts for double when the old stand is chocka and the roar rolls straight down Oteha Valley Road. I'll grant you one thing though, FixIsIn - you're right that the crowd fed that team. Ten minutes of noise and the visitors looked like they wanted to be anywhere else. Different era, different ground, but nights like that don't come along often. 📊Do the math before you argue.
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@ChrisDiehard387 fighting talk? that's just the truth, mate 😏 I'd put my TAB money on the '96 mob over these current boys every day of the week, half of them couldn't hold onto a ball in the rain if you greased their hands first. Faith's lovely and all, but the bookies aren't pricing belief 😂It's a lottery, not sport.
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Funny you all mention the roar, because my clearest memory is the quiet bit just before it, whole ground holding its breath, then Oteha Valley Road basically erupting 😱🔥 I was up the back of the old stand, dad smacking everyone on the shoulder like we'd all won lotto. Lost my voice for two days after, ah well, nowt to do 💪🙌You don't abandon your own.
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I was 4 in '96 so my contribution is secondhand stories and a dodgy VHS 😂 reckon that alone qualifies me as a historian, carry on 🍿Memes are analysis too.