Soccer club service honoured | Rotorua News | Local News in Rotorua

Ask Frank Harwood if he moved to Turangi for the soccer, and he'll tell you straight.
``Hell no,'' he barks. It turns out he actually came for the fishing.
But with his wealth of experience _ Frank spent four seasons playing for Blackburn Rovers in the United Kingdom and went on to coach in Auckland and Tokoroa _ it wasn't long before he became involved with the Turangi Wanderers Football Club as a player, coach and referee.
Alan Penrose's path into the club was different. He got involved when his children started playing and since then he's held the club presidency for six years, fundraised, coached, become a referee, restarted a competitive men's team and despite hip replacements, even taken to the field on occasion.
The two men's contributions to soccer in Turangi were recognised last month when the pair were made life members of the Turangi Wanderers Football Club at the club's annual meeting.
Alan says although he's not entirely sure, the club has only two other life members _ Kerry Scott and Jimmy Durham, who has since died.
Frank, originally from Lancashire, has played soccer since he was a pre-schooler and played until he was 52. He has never properly stopped his soccer involvement, having been part of the club on and off for the past 32 years. After his retirement from playing, he continued to support and coach the club's junior teams. He also served as the club's vice-president at Alan's request, with Alan saying he shoulder-tapped Frank because ``he's got the gift of the gab and he doesn't stand down to anybody _ he stands his ground''.
Although Frank is now 81, he still works and fishes, walks kilometres every week, and is fit and active. The club's senior men's team plays in the competitive Bay of Plenty league and Frank has just been appointed coach for 2012.
Frank also refereed almost all of the Wanderers' senior men's home games in Turangi last year. Alan says when he asked last season if Frank would help out, he stepped up without complaint. And although the opposing teams know Frank is a Wanderers member, they don't have a problem with him taking the whistle.
``He's fair and firm, there's no doubt about that.''
Frank himself says when he's on the field, he's just a referee.
``Whether you're involved with the club or not shouldn't come into it and as far as I'm concerned it doesn't come into it, especially if you're doing kids.''

Frank says when he heard he was to be made a life member of the club (known as an honorary member) he thought, ``What the hell's an honorary member?'' But now he's come around to the idea.
``It's a real honour and it's something that you get with service isn't it. At first I thought `yeah, yeah', and then when I started thinking about it, it felt pretty good.''
Alan, a former soldier and now a corrections officer, has been with the Turangi Wanderers for 12 years and has been club president since 2006.
He played soccer as a youngster growing up on the Kapiti Coast but although he gave it up in his early 20s, he got dragged back in when his three children began playing.
``I got involved through my kids. I started out managing my boys' team for nine years. I've been helping out like most parents, managing the teams when we first started and I coached a few times, and then basically committee work and fundraising, all that stuff.''
His sons Calvin and Struan both play for the senior men's team and Alan says for him one of the highlights has been having a kick around on the field with his boys on the occasions when he's been called in to play for the senior men's.
``There's plenty of people would like to do that.''
Alan says his main goal as president has been to make sure that the junior teams got what they needed to be able to play and compete, such as team uniforms in the club's colours.
Last year he also did his level one referee's course through the club. It is running another refereeing course in March with assistance from the Turangi Tongariro Sports Foundation. Alan hopes some coaching courses will also eventuate.
Turangi Wanderers began a senior men's team in 2010 to provide somewhere for its young players to progress to and keep them playing when they began to move out of the junior competition. Alan hopes a senior women's team mooted for this season will fulfil a similar need.
``We've got a few good girls in our club but once they get to a certain age they go to rugby or something, or to Taupo. We've got four or five up-and-coming ones that are in the 12- to 13-year-old bracket now and if we had a team it would give them somewhere to go and hopefully keep them in the sport.''
Alan puts all his spare time into the club and says he and his family were all rapt with the news of his life membership.
But he'd like to see more people lend a hand to lighten the load. He says the club also lacks experienced coaches, despite there being plenty of talent in town.
``We've got a lot of good players still living in Turangi and if they're not interested in playing for the club it would be nice to see them come out of the woodwork and put a little bit more time into our juniors.''
The club is supported by George and Mandy Jensen at Manaaki Gym, Kernohan Contractors and Huckleberry's Charitable Trust.