Melville Old Boys are relaxed about their 7th-placed finish in the Over 45s football division of the New Zealand Masters Games in Whanganui.

There was no repeating of their national title-winning exploits at Over 50s level in 2023, but that was hardly a surprise given Melville were the oldest squad in their division - and the good news was everybody was still friends at the end of a very taxing campaign.

Stars for Melville included Stu Miller and Wytse Bouma with two goals apiece - an outcome few were predicting pre-tournament.

Wytse, the eldest of the squad's Bouma triplets (Merv and Todd were the others) notched the winner as Melville at least won Waikato bragging rights with a 1-0 victory over Northern United.

Another highlight was a 2-0 win over Western Springs in a tournament eventually claimed by a Capital Hearts team featuring former two-times national league player of the year Graham Little (2001 & 2002).

Phil Govorko played in goal for the first six matches, and then was replaced by Stu "Clean Sheet" Timings, who made a return to his glory days of 1989 when he played several matches in goal for Melville at northern league level.

"There was a lot of man love," Timings said of the three days holed up in a Whanganui bunkhouse. "It was all very friendly, with good social camaraderie, and Big Phil got plenty of game-time."

On the debit side, a dubious decision to take a coaching whiteboard south only served to bewilder a number of the Melville players, and almost led to unexpected consequences in one instance.

Meanwhile Darby Macdonald was relieved to get through the tournament with just the one booking. This was perhaps reward for Macdonald now concentrating exclusively on football in the twilight of his career, having hung up his cricket bat after 30 years as a specialist No 9 batsman.

For the record, there were nine teams in Melville's division.

Article added: Friday 21 February 2025