White is the New Black

Well it was on Saturday night anyway (and probably well into the early hours of Sunday) down in Wellington and around New Zealand as we celebrated that the All Whites mens soccer, sorry football, team are going to the World Cup in South Africa next year. Only the second time in our history that this has happened. And weren't we excited.

Even if you are not a football fan (in the sense of the round rather than oval ball), it would have been hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere surrounding the team, the game, the event and ultimately the win. It was heart in mouth stuff right to the end, because it was only going to one goal from the Bahrain team and the dream would have come crumbling down.

Of course, wanting to tie all this into a library environment I did a keyword search for All Whites in our Rodney Libraries catalogue. Which is probably a good time to point out that the results of any search are graded by relevance and there was a fairly eclectic mix (wine, cooking, westerns, racism) and only one lonely book about the All Whites of 1982.

However, we do have a wide range of books on soccer (click on the word for a link through to all the different subject headings in our catalogue), from coaching manuals and hints for adults and children, through to biographies and histories. I have a funny feeling that these will become even more popular than they already are in the leadup (and hopefully aftermath) of the World Cup next year. As an aside, you do have to search soccer in our Rodney catalogue as football takes you through to the oval ball codes.

If you want a heads up about soccer in New Zealand, one of the best places to head is the NZ Football website

I should add that another New Zealand team qualified for a World Cup over the weekend, with the Black Sticks mens hockey team winning a six nation qualifying tournament in Invercargill to secure a place in the 2010 World Cup in India.

Congratulations to all teams. Just to show how aged I am "Give 'em a taste of Kiwi".

image from NZ Football website