Football: Stalwart not just horsing around

Roslyn-Wakari stalwart Barry Still at Ellis Park, with the club's stallion emblem in the...
Roslyn-Wakari stalwart Barry Still at Ellis Park, with the club's stallion emblem in the background. Photo by Craig Baxter.
Roslyn-Wakari celebrates its 125th year this weekend, and the club expects nearly 300 club members to be at Ellis Park for the celebrations.

There will be exhibits, matches, speeches and countless ''remember when'' social sessions over three days, as the family club enjoys getting together and revelling in the experience.

The club has shelves full of trophies and impressive statistics well recorded in several publications, but the human face of Roslyn is exemplified by Barry Still, striker extraordinaire.

A classic quiet Kiwi sportsman, Still is near-invisible in the club lounge, yet he can lay claim to being in the top echelon of New Zealand's goal-scorers.

To play 213 senior games for Roslyn is impressive, but to have scored 232 goals during that period is breath-taking.

The Roslyn administration asked for accurate statistics from New Zealand Football historian Barry Smith, and he confirmed Still's exemplary record.

Typically, Still is a little vague about his statistics and his many representative games for Otago, and in national and southern leagues, but he remembers plenty of fun times.

From when he was a wee boy, kicking a ball at Frasers Road with mates such as Mark McConville and Mark Gribben, he had an insatiable appetite for the game - and to score goals.

''No Playstations for us. We could not wait to get along after school to Ellis Park, play for hours until it got dark, then head round to the nearest chip shop for a feed,'' he said.

An early Roslyn coach was Arthur Duke, whose sons, Geoff and Ray, were also omnipresent, and all benefited from Duke's simple message of effort and enthusiasm, with the bonus being a feed of chocolate from the Cadbury's worker.

''We sure had a classic sporty diet, with chocolate and chips, and lots of football, but we ran it off, playing until it got dark.''

Apart from scoring a swag of goals for Roslyn, Still also exemplified the loyalty that made him a one-club man all his life.

You would hardly think his tattoo of Roslyn's stallion emblem on his bottom would be commonplace, but several team-mates also made that same commitment.

''It was a bit of fun, and we all enjoyed a laugh as well as being deadly serious about becoming better players. Those that did not get the tattoo took the easier option of parachute jumps.''

A string of enthusiastic coaches helped Still and his team-mates along. The ever-present Dale Watts and former Police Commissioner Howard Broad, also a lifelong Roslyn player, ''nearly turned us all into marathon runners, we did so much running at training''.

Neil Mackenzie's tactics and enthusiasm were supreme, and another Roslyn senior striker, Mike Richmond, devoted time to polish up the heading skills which accounted for many of Still's gymnastic goals.

All players benefited from Roslyn's improvement of facilities, which included the gymnasium project that allowed all-weather indoor training, and also scope to build social facilities that have become second to none in Otago.

Roslyn is the biggest club in Otago, sitting high in the Footballsouth Premier League, with a women's section that has dominated the competition for several years and a well-organised junior club.

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