E40 | Kevin Fallon
Episode summary | Kevin Fallon
Kevin Fallon is cracking company and a true legend of the Kiwi game.
We talk about the struggles of coaching a national league team as a 24-year-old in Gisborne and turning them into a footballing juggernaut. The time he fought Ken Dugdale at training, his reflections on his controversial sacking from Mount Albert Grammar School after 14 successful years.
Fallon’s back catalogue of stories and experiences was fairly daunting in scale, from coaching against Brazil at the 1982 World Cup, to watching his son Rory score the winner against Bahrain on that special night in Wellington.
He’s seen it all and done it all and hasn’t lost any of his competitive edge, enthusiasm or energy despite being in his early 70s.
Show notes | Kevin Fallon
2.04 Travelling four times a week to Centre Park from the Awhitu Peninsula and how Seamus and Steven know Kevin
5.10 Over 40 years of daily journaling and Kevin’s weekly blog
9.58 Mere Fallon: A football wife and football mum
13.04 Kevin Fallon on Kevin Fallon from 1982 to present day
22.56 Mind games and winning
27.45 The recent changes to the New Zealand national league
32.12 Sean Fallon and his time at Liverpool FC
36.19 Creating professional players
40.45 Rory Fallon and THAT goal against Bahrain
44.50 Where does the drive to keep going come from at age 72?
48.27 We go back to the beginning of the New Zealand journey in Gisborne in 1972
52.23 Two future national team coaches come to blows: Fallon v Ken Dugdale at training
54.48 Going back to Gisborne under the Russian millionaire in the mid-2000s
56.54 Linking up with John Adshead and the All Whites, and the meteoric rise from Rotherham to the 1982 World Cup in 10 years
1.03.28 Reflecting on 14 years at Mount Albert Grammar School
1.18.34 Rapid fire with Fallon: on All Whites coaches since 1988, national league coaches, Hone Fowler, school and local derbies
1.26.01 The New Zealand national league now v the 70s and 80s
1.30.54 Coaching New Zealand in the FIFA U-17 World Cup 1999 (and winning)
1.33.35 Coaching the Football Kingz and thoughts on a New Zealand club in an Australian competition
1.36.24 Final thoughts provided by George Suri
