A morning scroll through the Getty Images archives is always a delight, particularly when you stumble across a picture that generates as many points of interest as this one.
Let’s start with the bare facts: The shot shows a very excited Danny Hay and a rather more subdued Damian Mori reacting to one of Glory’s goal in their 4-1 win over New Zealand Knights at Albany’s North Harbour Stadium (NZ) back in January 2006.
But there’s plenty more of interest, even without discussing the splendid mullet being sported by one of the defenders in the background.
For one thing, you’d imagine given his enthusiastic celebration, that Hay had scored, but it was actually Naum Sekulovski (2), Jamie Harnwell and Jamie Coyne who grabbed the goals that day.
So why was Danny so pleased?
Quite possibly because he’d been skippering the Knights up until a month earlier when a falling out with the club’s management prompted him to return to Glory for a second spell here in the West.
He had, of course, previously twice claimed the MGP Award, one of only two Kiwis ever to do so (Gavin Wilkinson being the other) and coming right up to date, is now Head Coach of the New Zealand national team.
Widening the focus slightly, a look at the team line-ups from that day throws up another couple of interesting points, with Jeremy Christie featuring for the hosts ahead of his move to Glory the following year and the visitors handing a start to Nicky Ward who would subsequently make 45 appearances for the Knights’ successors, Wellington Phoenix.
A very youthful Jeremy Brockie was also in the Knights team that day and we mention that purely as an excuse to raise the question of whether his tender years can be used as a mitigating factor for his decision to go with corn rows…
Then there’s the matter of North Harbour Stadium, or QBE Stadium as it’s now known.
Glory have enjoyed playing there during the A-League era, losing just once in four visits and as always, we’d love to get your memories of those trips to the Auckland suburb.
So if you’ve been on hand to witness the men in purple tasting victory in Albany, or at Wellington’s Westpac Stadium for that matter, join the conversation on Facebook HERE or Twitter HERE.
#OneGlory
