Nick Becker: Auckland FC CEO on the success of the Black Knights in their inaugural A-League season

Auckland FC’s CEO is blown away by the team’s success. 

The Black Knights have won their first five A-League games without conceding a goal, and now sit at the top of the table. 

Saturday will see them clash against the Wellington Phoenix once more, this time at Mt Smart Stadium. 

CEO Nick Becker told Mike Hosking that coach Steve Corica has done a great job pulling together a squad of young guys who want to go out there and play for each other. 

He says it’s a cohesive unit, and you see it when they fight for every ball. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Part two of the local derby in the A League.
Tomorrow Auckland FC host the Phoenix. It's been an amazing
start really for Auckland's debuts season. The CEO is Nick Becker,
who's back with us.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Nick.

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Morning to you, morning Mike. If you're doing it very well, congratulated.
I think when we last had you on the program,
it was the beginning of the season and you might
have but we didn't know what was going to happen.
So congratulations on it all. I mean, it really is.
It's it's faultless, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
It's amazing. It's an incredible start. And you know, I
mean if you'd asked me if I thought this could happen,
obviously it's absolutely no chance at all. So you know,
we're blown away and we're over the moon.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
What do you reckon the magics? Have you worked that
out yet?

Speaker 2 (00:35):
I mean a lot of hard work, a lot of
hard work. But now I think I think Steve's a
fantastic coach. I mean he's actually just been He's just
one coach of the month for the A League, which
is work many other contenders if you ask me. But
he's done a great job and pulling together a fantastic
squad of young guys who who just all want to
go up and play for themselves, sorry for each other,
running themselves, and so there's a real cohesive unit out there,

(00:58):
and you see it when they fight for every ball together,
are so strong. It's just a really it's a pleasure
to watch.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
And not putting to crass a point on it, but
the bottom line must be looking good. And I mean
when you sell out, you sell up.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
Yeah, No, I mean that certainly helps. And you know,
we're sort of you know, we know we all want
to sell every match. That's where we would like to
build to, and that's we would like to get to.
But it certainly does help when you've got what the
first four matches, we're going to have close to eighty
thousand or pie fans through the doors. So I mean, yeah,
that's brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
Do you are some of the younger, more inexperienced players
starting to feel the pressure, because of course, the better
you do, the higher you're going to fall eventually in
some way, shape or form, aren't you.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Yeah, But they, I mean, it's a bit of a
cliche and I'm not going to say they take it
one game at a time. But what they do do
is they set a challenge for each for themselves at
each game and they build up to that. So they've
sort of focused on one the one task at hand,
which I think really helps. Plus we've got a good
mix of experience in this squad, so you know players
like the captain Heroki who's been to three Will carp
Seater who's absolute legend and he just brings a bit

(02:03):
of calm in that dressing room and they look to
him and they see how professional he is and it
really helps them.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
List they're going fantastic. I'll tell you. I tell you
what's interesting for me. I'm not a big football fan
because nothing against your sport, but I've just got other
sports I'm interested in. But I am watching you because
of what you are doing. So that's ideally from the marketing, branding,
whatever point of view, that you can't ask them more
than that, can you?

Speaker 2 (02:25):
No, you can't. And I think there's a lot of
Auckland sports fans who have come on that journey as well,
and it's great to hear that you've got on board
my for status. You're always welcome to come along. You
need to get to a game. But the I think
there's a lot of you know, because football has exploded,
especially with the kids in Auckland, and a lot of
the parents have a bit like yourself. They're like, well,
I've never already followed football, but suddenly they're coming on,

(02:48):
they're getting on the journey and they're riding the roller
coast without her. Games, you know, we've been we've been winning,
but we've been scoring late and so it's been quite
they've been quite tense games and you just see it
in people's faces in the crowd. It's quite. That's quite
amazing to watch.

Speaker 1 (03:01):
Fantastic. Well, I hope you're enjoying it. I'm sure you are, Nick,
go well. Nick Becker Aukan the f c CEO.

Speaker 2 (03:07):
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