CITY LEADER OF SOCCER TOP 10

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31726, 9 July 1968, Page 15

CITY LEADER OF SOCCER TOP 10

Christchurch City has been placed first, New Brighton tenth, in the list of the top 10 clubs of 1967 in the new edition of “New Zealand Soccer Annual.”

City, which the annual ranked fourth in 1966, last year won the Canterbury championship for the fourth successive year and was the beaten Chatham Cup finalist. Brighton was runner-up to City in both the Canterbury league and qualifying cup competitions. The annual's editor, Barry Smith, giving his reasons for the choice of City as No. 1, said that the club “played consistently good football.” Also, he quotes the national coach, Mr J. Schwanner, as describing City “as the best drilled side he had seen in New Zealand." Smith says that the credit

for Brighton's successes in its first year after gaining promotion “must go to the playercoach Ken France (now with Technical), who was an inspiration to his young teammates."

The top 10 clubs listed by the annual are: Christchurch City 1. Ponsonby (Auckland) 2, Hungaria (Wellington) 3, Eastern Union (Poverty Bay), now Gisborne City, 4, North Shore United, Mount Wellington, Blockhouse Bay (all Auckland) equal 5, Northern (Otago) 8, Thistle (Manawatu) 9, New Brighton 10. Smith describes the 1967 season “as one of the most memorable in the history of the game jn New Zealand,” listing three “famous firsts”— the two-match tour of Manchester United, the English League champion: the twomatch tour of the Scottish national team; and the sending of two New Zealand teams overseas, to tournaments in South Vietnam and New Caledonia. The annual includes all the statistics of the 1967 season for each provincial association, ani full reports of the two overseas tours and the Chatham Cup competition. It is priced at 25c.