The Heartbeat Of Football

People like Adrian Cocker are the heartbeat of Southland Football.

Cocker was a hockey player, a code in which he played one game for Southland, and while he only ever played a few games of social football, he has been involved as a volunteer since the late 1990s.

Starting as an interested spectator when his son Jason began playing for the Old Boys club, a year later he said he was “dragged” into coaching, and stayed involved until daughter Hannah finished up in 2013.

Cocker’s interest increased when English coach John Herdman came south.

“Without a doubt he is one of the best Southland and this country has seen,” says Cocker of the man who is now the Canadian Men’s Coach.

“He inspired me to do as well as I could in the coaching field.”

Herdman started the Spirit Academy and Cocker and others became Academy coaches.

When he was with the Spirit Academy he was spending seven days a week on football – “they were great times.

“ I learnt more and John convinced me to go for my NZ Academy coaches licence, and from that I had a couple of stints with the New Zealand Youth Academy which was great learning,” he said.

He spent a year helping with the Southland Spirit side before manager Phil Williams moved on, and spent five years managing the side.

“I only missed one game, the very last one after I had booked a holiday to Australia but the season got extended.

“When I was managing the Spirit, I was also coaching youth football.

“I would do my coaching during the week but on game day I would be there for the first ten minutes before I had to go to Dunedin with the Spirit so I relied on the great parents we had.”

One highlight for Cocker was the fact that two of the girls he has worked with, Lauren Mathis of Gore and Sammy Murrell, went on to make New Zealand teams.

“They had to give up their lives and move to Auckland to make it,” he said.

“The people you meet in sport are good people. If you get kids into a sport for a few years they are on a good track.

“Parents are the biggest influencers on kids who play sport because they care.

“I love seeing kids playing from a young age, enjoying the game and having fun and the enjoyment their parents get from it all,” he said.

Cocker said Southland Football has been lucky to have had coaches of the calibre of 1982 All Whites Peter Simonsen and Cresswell plus Herdman and currently Ignacio Sande and Luis Paiva.

Cocker also coaches at the Oreti Swimming Club and it was a similar story there.

“I started with our kids, then it was friends’ kids, now it’s the grandkids,” he said.

“Both my brother and I were brought up to participate in the community and I am giving back what was given to me.”

Away from sport, Cocker is an operations technologist with 3 Waters, part of the Invercargill City Council, dealing with drinking water, storm water and waste water.

With the country now at Alert Level 1 Cocker is about to get busy again.

First Kicks for the 4-6yo’s and Fun Football for the 7-8yo’s gets underway this Saturday.

Any kids wanting to play can contact the Southland Football Office 03 217 7900, their local football club or just roll up to Turnbull Thompson Park at 9am on a Saturday morning and ask for Adrian Cocker and he will find a team for them.