Nine Games in

So with all the craziness going on in my head and all, Three Kings have managed to make a move on the Northern Premier League Table. After I was moved back into the Center back position we've gone five games without a lost (four wins and a tie).

Not trying to be a show off but it is what it is. Due to my current problems, I've been on beast mode for every Saturday. There are some times that I don't even remember the Saturday afternoons or even the nights that I go out. It takes me the Monday morning to realize what I have done. It is really strange

Yesterday (Saturday) we beat Lynn-Avon 3-1. We kind of had a rough go at it first because we went down a goal due to us not concentrating. However we came out strong in the second half and rightly deserved our victory. Even though their coach didn't even give us any credit for the game. We were better than them overall and deserved to win.

There are times where I think we believe things are going to be easy for us. We have to know that this league is much more competitive than Division 1 and we are going to have to come up huge during these games. Even if we are flat, let's make sure that we don't give up any or many goals as it is. We have to dig in and figure ourselves out because once the true Three Kings come out, it is pretty hard to contain us.

Personally, I am okay. Even if mentally I am not always there. My footy stays important and consistent how I always try to be. There are many who are injured at this time and I can't blame them because i know that our players don't want to be injured but it is what it is. I try to keep myself injured free by not doing the shooting drills on Wednesday and doing some necessary fitness during the days before training. That is what I can do especially when I do nothing otherwise.

So we are nine games in and closing in to the title race. To start the season, I didn't think we would be even close but as the team comes together and we realize that even the ugliest of wins will do. We have a feeling that we will be in the title race til the end even with the players we have on the bench now. If we were all healthy, we are a top three team for sure. At least talent wise. But as they say:

"Hard Work beats Talent when Talent doesn't work hard."

So we have to work hard for our wins, no matter how good or bad it looks, let's take care of business.

Today is my Mother's Birthday. Everyone say happy birthday to my mom because she is the most important person in my life right now.

I can come to her with anything and she understands where I am coming from and can give me the right advice about what I should do.

Even though I might be confused about what I should do right now, she can at least give me some sort of guidance about what I can do or not do.

Other than that, I am okay. I would love to come home at the same time staying in New Zealand for a couple of years would not hurt me either. What is going to happen if I do stay here? Probably nothing, no one would really know that I am even gone unless they checked up on me. There are only two or three people that would check up on me in that way anyways.

Right now, I am going to be patient because at least right now, things do not work out for me how I should expect they should. I'll just ball out on the footy field with my red AdiPure IIs (I'm going to show u a pic of them soon) and have fun with life because that is what my family and true friends would want me to be doing. Having fun with life!....

Definitely Not a Fan of This Monday

Even though I should not be having any gripes about Mondays, since I don't really work at this point in time. I am really not happy at the moment about this one because I was awaken at around 7:30am when I at least usually wake up around 9am. I can't seem to get back to sleep either. I guess I deserve it because of me not having to wake up early at all.

Soccer has been going. We tied East Coast Bays a couple of weeks ago 0-0 and this weekend we scored a 4-nil victory against Manurewa. It is slowly but surely coming together. We complain about our performances not being good enough but hey we are still winning games and that is all you want when you have teams that aren't as talented but work their asses off to try and frustrate us. We just need to make sure that we do the job no matter how ugly.

I wouldn't say that I am not feeling anything but I am not thinking of a lot right now. Lots have been going on in the background that could potentially irk me but I try not to sweat this sort of stuff right now. Even though it seems that nothing as been going right in the two months that I have been here. The only thing that has seemed to improve is my footy which I feel that I am playing well in.

Don't know how I am doing it though. I feel distracted during training and during the days where I have nothing else to do but thing. I guess once I get the jersey on and walk out on the pitch, nothing else matters, empty promises are erased for those 90 minutes until that final whistle is blown. Then I can hear (because I am not listening anymore) about the same stuff how everything is going to change.

I am working on finding a job for myself but of course it hasn't been too successful as I would like it to be. It seems that no one is going to hire someone who has under two months left on their visa. Fair enough on them. I cannot blame them too much. So I will continue to try and work things out on my own and if it doesn't work out.


Then I guess I will have to put on my shades and shorts and enjoy another summer...

Those Lil Kids

I was working the Three Kings holiday programmes this week. And of course it was an interesting week. With having to yell at kids to get their attentions and threaten them with any punishment if they do not do what they are told. Unfortunately, they do not listen due to their small attention spans. So you cannot really punish them. There is a little thing called laws. My good friend Paul Temple (Temps for further references) did a good job in trying to threaten "punishment" on the kids.

Yesterday, we asked the kids who liked Tottenham. And there was a resounding boo amongst all of the kids. There was a little rival match the next day between Tottenham and Arsenal at White Hart Lane. Temps being a loyal Spurs supporter decided to make the kids cheer for the Spurs by saying, if Tottenham wins there will be fun and games for the kids but if they lose he is going to make the run the whole time. So the kids not knowing that it is a trick started cheering for Tottenham to win the next morning. Evilness that's what I call it.

Otherwise the camp went without a hitch. We got a lot done with the thanks of Steve Dillion and Stephen Murphy aka Scotty aka Troy. The kids enjoyed it a lot. I am sure the parents enjoyed it too. They didn't have to deal with children for a good 3 to 4 hours.

I don't want to change the subject. This post is all about the kids. I think I am going to ram another post out in a few...

Just Another Week

I am trying to keep the blog posts going for those that actually read the blog (who are they?) All I did last week was train, play in a game and worry whether I would have a place to stay or not. If you must know, we have to move out of the place we are currently staying at because of some unfortunate circumstances due to the family that own the whole house. So they are currently in the process of selling and we all decided just to leave the flat before things got messy.

I found a place to stay however. Daniel Eisenhunt and his wife are allowing me to stay at their flat for the next month or two. By that time I will hopefully get my own flat or nice cheaper lodging that is somewhat comfortable. To be honest, I do not know what they have gotten themselves into but hopefully I will be moving in with them next week.

The footy? It's getting better. TKU scored another victory against Papatotoe (I like that name for some odd reason). We dominated the first half but somehow found ourselves down. Then we scored three un-answered before they pulled one back to finish 3-2. We scraped away towards the last 10 to 15 minutes but a win is a win and we'll accept the three points and ask questions later. No one said that getting three points in this league would be easy by any means.

Now we are in seventh place with 10 points and we have a big match against East Coast Bays next Saturday. They are currently league-leaders and have let it five goals up to date (they haven't played their round 6 match yet), so this is going to be a big match. Hopefully me and the boys will show up. We are having a problem with injuries. We had to make two substitutions along our backline last weekend due to injuries. And there are others in the starting 11 who are injured also, so we are only training two days this week (Yess!)

I am keeping it solid along the backline. I never want to complicate things while playing in the back. Using the K.I.S.S (Keep It Simple Stupid) method to make things go along smoothly. I do not need to be dribbling out of the backline or anything. Just look up, see if you can make a pass, if not clear the ball as far as possible. Being as fit as I am right now, I can do much more in the game especially in the center half position where you do not even need to do as much running as anyone else on the field, unless you are on the back-foot all the time.

During this point in time, I am going through a wide-range of emotions. I was actually thinking about picking up my ball and going home due to the club not being able to find me a part-time job when they said they would and now potentially being homeless. On the way to training on Thursday, I was about to utter the words: "This could not get worse" However when I thought about it, I was like: "you know what, it could possibly get worse so I just need to shut up." The problem that I am having with everything is that it has nothing to do with soccer. It is more of the real-life situation that I am in and the feeling of being used.

Fortunately, like I said earlier, I got a place to stay now and I have a job until I could possibly be working in a casino (which would be tight). So hopefully things are coming together just nicely. I have some money problems at this time but that seems to come with the territory for Mr. Andre Sherard....

#3 No Jokes Strictly Business

April 2, 2010 11:54pm

The season has since started and we have had mixed results so far. We've gone 1-1-1 in this early season and we are standing basically in the middle of the table. We haven't hit our stride yet and even in our W we were playing better when the other team had all their players on the field (they had two sent off) but a win is a win. Some people might think that maybe it's better to start off slow than start off fast and tail off. I don't know how true that is. Yeah you can say that if you're starting off slow and still winning games but if you are starting slow and losing or tying games then you can put yourself into a hole that you can't get out of. We play a top team in Forest Hill-Milford tomorrow, it is a key game for our goal of a top 8 finish of the first part of the season.

Those who might not know, the league is currently set up with 17 teams and the top 8 teams will be automatically put in the Premier League next season while the nine bottom teams have to battle it out for the final two spots.

The Forest Hill game is a crucial one, we need to start beating those teams that are in front of us. That is the key for this season, we should beat those teams behind us but beating a couple of teams that are in the top group will be key in our push for a top 8 spot. Then we have the reigining champions Melville on Monday. So it will be a pretty busy weekend and hopefully we'll be able to get six points out of these games.

Currently playing at the left back position. Normally I wouldn't be too happy about it but right about now I just decided to go with it and have some fun with it. I have been feeling as fit as I've been in a long time so I think I can go 90 minutes running back and forth. (err Maybe?) I played the position in last Saturday's game and it felt pretty good for the most part. And actually set up the second goal, that is one good thing about playing in the outside position, you can put yourself in positions to score or set-up goals.

I know what you are thinking? (probably not thinking this though) 'Andre, are you left-footed?' The answer is well, I am predominantly right-footed but I can play a left-footed ball as well as my right so playing the left back position isn't a bad thing for me. You do not really need your left foot unless you want to play a cross which I practiced more and more on that during Thursday's training and I feel like I got that on point. So even though I am not perfect with the left, I feel as if I can without thinking play a good pass with the left.


Nothing to note from me personally. I would like to keep my anger moments to myself and not divulge too much information unless someone can learn from them. I've been walking the beaches almost every day when I do not have anything else to do. It is really nice and relaxing to do. Sometimes I just sit there and stare at the water, not even thinking about a thing just staring. I am sure those who pass by are like what is this guy doing. It is better than sleeping all day which I actually did today because I spent yesterday pretty sleepless.

That is pretty much it from me. Yeah it is mostly soccer going on, that is why I had a big spill about it. If I have anything else to mention that has the least bit importance of the life of Andre Sherard, do not worry I will mention it...

We can learn from this

On Saturday, we were thoroughly embarrassed and in all places our home territory. However we can learn from this setback. People say this "welcome to the premier league" junk and all that but I know all of us knew what we were getting into in our first couple of games and yeah, this is a rude awakening, but we did not play up to snuff on Saturday and when you don't show up which we didn't then even the average teams (and the team we played against was average) will beat us with no problems in this league.

I can run off a few things from the top of my head of what was wrong Saturday but in reality it wouldn't be fair and I can take a great amount of responsible because let's be honest, I am a defender and they scored four goals on us, so for whatever anyone says, I'll take full responsible for that and gutted that now I will miss the next two games because I thought to save face and not let a fat pudgy b****** score on an open net. People tell me I should have let him score but I am sorry I can't sit there with the pride that I have, let this guy laugh at our players and then score on an empty net. (It is just not happening and I am pretty sure I got majority of the ball on the challenge, the problem I guess is that I went through him).

It is a gut check for us but I think the players we have can bounce back from this. We have a lot of talent here and probably the best thing for us is that we have another game straight away because I've been through training sessions after losses (especially bad ones) and those are the worse ones to be in. So I think this next game on Tuesday will define us, whether we will sink or we will rise up because starting 0-2 in this league will be a bad hole to be in especially with the league being this competitive. Unfortunately I won't have a direct impact in the game, but I'll do everything in my power to make sure that the guy's are ready for this one. LET'S GO BOYS!

What Exactly am I chasing?

Am I chasing the dream or a much happier life?

I've been going through this dilemma for about a month now. Unfortunately the answer to this question isn't as easy as I would want it to be. I'd rather it just be staring me at my face so I can make the decision accordingly. However no, this will continue to wreck my brain until I make up my mind what exactly I would want to do. The crappy thing about this is what ever decision that I make then more than likely the other one will most definitely close up forever. So this is probably the most important decision that I'm going to have to make in my life. I don't know. I've drawn up some of my options and see what are the benefits and disadvantages to each.

I've been (so eloquently called) "chasing the dream" of playing professional soccer for a couple of years now. It is something I want to do, I've been playing footy all my life so it is kind of hard to change my ways. So I've been trying to get in contact with teams and have had a couple of tryouts lined up. Like I said in a previous post about going to a Real Maryland tryout in which I got good reviews and such. And I know that I've gotten a tryout in Richmond in February. Now I can play well but the same thing that happened to me when I tried out for the Railhawks could happen to me in these places. They could make me go through "another round" of tryouts. And then not picking anyone at all. That process kind of left me with a bad taste in my mouth and that is something that I don't want to go through.

Thinking about it now. It might just be chasing the dream. I've seen so many guys who have been through the circuit many of times. And I don't want to be one of those guys because I know if I'm not good enough to make it through the eyes of these coaches then I probably should do something else. I mean I'm never cocky about anything that I do but when I say that I'm better than some of the players that they do pick. However the "good ole boy" system comes into effect and they'll pick players that they know and want to give them their chance. So I don't know whether to chase this dream will be much worth it anymore.



I've gotten the unique opportunity to go back to New Zealand. Now even though I've had some growing pains and what I not, I thoroughly enjoyed my time there and I would like to live there for as long as possible. And I get to play some footy also which would be good. I get to play on the team that I played on last year. My coaches have the faith in me and my ability unlike those back home. They know that I can play my preferred position even though I'm not the suitable height (whatever that means). There might have been some changes to the team, but all the guys that I've gotten to know are all quality guys on and off the field. I wouldn't trade that experience with anything else in the world. Plus the other people that I've met are another reason why I would love to come back.

Still though, most of the time, the sequel isn't as good as the first one. What if this "chasing of a happier life" is only a quick fix? And in the long run, it ends up being a bust? Another thing that I have to think about is getting a job because I cannot just play soccer there unfortunately. I have to find a way to get a job. I mean I've had a tough time finding a job in the United States as it is, so I'm sure it'll be rough for me to find a job around there. Also what if my footy isn't as good as it was last year? You never know when you've think that you hit your peak or not until it happens. It is just the things that go through my head (but I'll get that out of my head, my best years are still ahead of me).




I know that life is about the challenges and the opportunities that I have. Also I know that I just have to go out there and just take the chance. It'll be possible that I will fail or that I will succeed. You have to accept whatever happens and go back to the drawing board. Now the thing is that I'm pretty much 50/50 in each situation. However it isn't like I've gotten something concrete from any of these teams here in the United States so it might just be tricks and whistles on their part and they may find some other USL-1 or MLS reject to take my spot because he has some sort of "name" now. Also I don't know whether my parents will want to pay the ticket for NZ (or at least some of the ticket because hopefully by the time the flight comes I will have some money to pay them back) even though the club that I'm going to play for is going to reimburse me once I get there.

Like I said, I wish the answer could just smack me in the face. But it's life, more importantly my life and I am going to have to make some tough decisions in it. Right????

It's about that time I say farewell.

New Zealand, It's been real. I loved my time here and I most definitely enjoyed the experience. I've had my ups and downs emotionally here but overall it was great to feel those feelings. It makes you understand how to work when you aren't feeling your best and to snap out of any worries that you feel.

The football was decent enough. I was luckily to play on a great team so that made everything much easier for me. And the fact that all the guys were great was even more enjoyable. Most of the other teams we played didn't have any style to their game. They wanted to either just pump balls over the top or play roughhouse tactics which really didn't work too well against us. We only lost one game all year and unfortunately it was the Chatham Cup Final. I'm sure that everyone of us learn a lot from that game and we took it into our final game and clinched the league.

I'm kinda at a lost for words. I feel like it's my time to head back home however I know that I'm going to miss a lot of great people over here. They made this journey a memorable one that I'll probably never forget. I can't honestly say that there's any one person that I can't stand or dislike they've all made me comfortable in many different ways. Gave me shit for my accent and all but even if it upset me at the time I knew they were just having fun with me.

It'll be good to get home. I can finally refresh my mind and refocus on what I want to do next season and that is play soccer. It won't be as easy as I would like it to be but I plan on working as hard as I possibly can to make this goal. Also I have to figure things to do when I'm back home. I remember everything I did before I left for New Zealand. I understand that it won't be the same when I get back. There has been a lot of change of people and especially in Chapel Hill where about I probably won't know about 55 to 60% of people who live there now. (I didn't know that many to begin with). So I guess I have to find a "crowd" in my age range and that'll be somewhat hard since I'm not the best at meeting people but I will definitely try. I might as well I don't have much else to lose by doing so.

Well, I don't really have much else to say. I don't think I find any more witty statements to make all I'm going to do is put a couple of links of some of my trip updates and such. As for those kiwi's that are reading this. I'll be out and about on Friday so maybe try to at least see me before I leave if you can, if not it's all good there's definitely no hard feelings on that. Farewell...

Past Trip Updates
Back on My B.S.
Right about now, I'll work for food
Splashing in a Mud Puddle
Uhh I guess a NZ Update
Live TV, Big Stadium, Big Crowd, and a Sunday Afternoon. What more can you ask for?



P.S. Oh By the Way, the journey ends, but the blog will never end. muahahahahaha!!!