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Football Kingz FC

The Football Kingz were New Zealand's first professional football club. They played in the Australian National Soccer League from 1999 until their disestablishment in 2004, when they were replaced by the New Zealand Knights as an inaugural participant in the newly established Australian A-League.

Football Kingz FC (promoted as Auckland Kingz within Australia) joined the Australian National Soccer League in 1999 and proceeded to play in the last five seasons of the NSL, failing to qualify for the play-offs in every season. The club was originally to use the spelling of "Kings", however this was changed to the Kingz after receiving legal threats from Australian basketball team the Sydney Kings.^[1]

Their inaugural coach was OFC Player of the Century and former New Zealand international Wynton Rufer in a player-coach role, with his brother Shane as assistant coach. They played their inaugural game on the evening of 1 October 1999 at North Harbour Stadium in front of then the largest crowd to watch a club game in New Zealand. The game was played against Carlton SC and even though it resulted in a 0–3 loss was an enthralling start to the professional era in New Zealand. This first season would end up being the club's most successful with 15 wins. The team finished eighth of sixteen teams.

After an encouraging first season the club set out to improve its performance on and off the park. There were a number of foreign signings, mostly from Brazil, that seemed good on paper but flopped on the park. One of these imports though immediately became a fan favourite, Dennis Ibrahim. The German went on to become the club's top scorer during the season, managing two hat-tricks (in a 3–2 win over the Brisbane Strikers at home on 30 March 2001 and against Sydney United in a 4–2 away win on 29 April 2001). The team's best result proved to be a 5–1 home win over the Newcastle Breakers on 27 October 2000. The team again finished in eighth place, winning 12 games.

Seasons One and Two showed the potential of the team (they would turn out to be the most successful seasons from a professional New Zealand football team until the Wellington Phoenix FC made the play-offs in 2009) and so Sky Television New Zealand became involved in the club. Their first move was to remove Wynton Rufer as coach while still wanting him to remain a player. Rufer's desire, however, was to remain as coach and to retire slowly as a player, and he immediately retired from playing. Mike Petersen was signed as the new manager and he brought with him a number of players including a young goalkeeper Michael Theoklitos to be part of the squad. His tenure lasted just five games. He started the season with a loss away to the Brisbane Strikers and three games later presided over an embarrassing 2–7 home loss to Perth Glory. The following game, a 2–2 draw away to Wollongong Wolves on 2 November 2001 was his last, walking out after it. A number of Australian players soon following him. Shane Rufer stepped in to become the club's caretaker manager. This tenure only lasted for two games but he achieved a win and draw from these games. Kevin Fallon was announced as the new manager, but the damage to the club had already been done and it ended up finishing with the "wooden spoon" in 13th place, this costing Fallon his job.

After the previous season's poor form, the club's owners drastically slashed the club's budget. Ken Dugdale was signed as the new coach. He had just finished a very successful stint as the manager of the All Whites, having won the Oceania Nations Cup and managed the team through their first involvement in the Confederations Cup where the All Whites performed very well. As he had a reduced budget he recruited from around New Zealand introducing to the team Raf de Gregorio and Jeremy Christie. While the club had some very talented young players it struggled to compete but managed to achieve a better final position in the National Soccer League than the season before, finishing 11 out of 13.

The National Soccer League was in a very bad financial state and fans were losing interest across the competition. This led the Australian Government to commission a report in to Soccer Australia and the NSL. Its recommendation was to abolish both Soccer Australia and the NSL and replace them with a new governing body and a new competition (Soccer Australia was broke and the NSL was unable to break away from its Euro Ethnic roots in parts of Australia). Knowing that this was going to be the last NSL season very little was spent on improving the squad and rumours spread that the club was struggling financially. Ken Dugdale remained manager, but the season started the way the previous one had finished. The club struggled on the playing field. In mid-season an announcement was made that the club was being bought out and its debts cleared. This was to cost Ken Dugdale his job and he was replaced on a temporary basis by his assistant Tommy Mason. Mason was soon confirmed as the club's permanent manager, even though many felt that he was not up to the role. The new owners felt that the playing squad needed strengthening and brought Danny Hay in, making him the new captain at the same time. Even with this new impetus the club again finished bottom of the league having only won four games. The club's very last game was on Sunday 29 February 2004 winning 4–3 at home to the Brisbane Strikers.

• Record victory: 5–1 vs Newcastle United (H), 26 October 2000
• Record defeat: 0–7 vs Parramatta Power (A), 14 February 2003
• Highest aggregate score: 9 goals: (2 games, both losses)

2–7 vs Perth Glory (H), 25 October 2001

4–5 vs South Melbourne (H), 15 March 2003

• Record league attendance: 13,111 (vsMarconi Stallions 16 March 2001)
• Lowest league attendance: 1,057 (vsNorthern Spirit FC 27 February 2003)

Home attendance figures for the final season are not included

• Longest winning streak: 3 games (15 November 2002 – 6 December 2002)
• Longest undefeated streak: 7 games (23 February 2001 – 6 April 2001)
• Longest losing streak: 7 games (15 March 2003 – 7 November 2003)
• Longest winless streak: 9 games (29 November 2003 – 10 January 2004)
• Most goals in a game: 4 – Harry NgatavsNorthern Spirit (H), 27 September 2002
• Most goals in a season: 12 – Dennis Ibrahim 2001–2002
• All-time most appearances: 129 – Harry Ngata
• All-time top scorer: 29 – Harry Ngata

Results of league and cup competitions by season

Season	Division	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	Pts	Pos	Finals	Name(s)	Goals
	League										Top goalscorer(s)
1999–2000	NSL	34	15	5	14	57	59	50	8th	DNQ	Aaron Silva	11
2000–01	NSL	30	12	7	11	52	52	43	8th	DNQ	Dennis Ibrahim	12
2001–02	NSL	24	3	5	16	28	58	14	13th	DNQ	Paul Urlovic	9
2002–03	NSL	24	6	6	12	26	45	24	11th	DNQ	Harry Ngata	8
2003–04	NSL	24	4	3	17	25	51	15	13th	DNQ	Harry Ngata	8

Name	Nat	From	To	Record
				P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
Wynton Rufer		October 1999	April 2001	64	27	12	25	109	111	−2	91
Mike Petersena		October 2001	October 2001	4	0	1	3	6	14	−8	1
Shane Ruferb		November 2001	November 2001	2	1	1	0	4	3	1	4
Kevin Fallon		November 2001	April 2002	18	2	3	13	18	41	−23	9
Ken Dugdalec		September 2002	November 2003	32	7	7	18	36	63	−27	28
Tommy Mason		November 2003	February 2004	16	3	2	11	15	33	−18	11
Total		October 1999	February 2004	136	40	26	70	188	265	-77	146

#	Name	Kingz career	Appearances	Goals
1	Harry Ngata	1999–2003	129	29
2	Chris Jackson	1999–2004	100	1
3	Jonathan Perry	1999–2003	90	7
4	Jeff Campbell	1999–2004	76	2
5=	Mark Burton	2000–2004	69	3
5=	Levent Osman	1999–2002	69	2
7	Paul Urlovic	2000–2003	59	16
8	Michael Utting	1999–2000 2002–2004	49	0
9=	Wynton Rufer	1999–2001	48	12
9=	Riki van Steeden	1999–2003	48	2

#	Name	Kingz career	Goals	Appearances
1	Harry Ngata	1999–2003	29	129
2	Paul Urlovic	2000–2003	16	59
3	Aaron Silva	1999–2001	13	32
4=	Dennis Ibrahim	2000–2001	12	24
4=	Wynton Rufer	1999–2001	12	48
6	Andy Vlahos	2001–2003	9	45

• Wellington Phoenix FC
• New Zealand Knights FC
• New Zealand Football
• Football Federation Australia
• A-League

^a Caretaker manager during October 2001. ^b Caretaker manager for two games. ^c Resigned after eight games in 2003.

• http://www.soccerway.com/teams/australia/football-kingz/
• http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/NZRepSoccer/id820.htm
• http://www.ozfootball.net/ark/NSL/20002001/reports/report085.html match report between the Kingz & Sydney United fc, 29/04/2001.
• http://www.bigfooty.com/forum/showthread.php?t=150425 Results
• http://www.ultimatenzsoccer.com/id744.htm Results
• http://plainsrangers.com/kingz.html Results