Year 9 keen footballer and Institute of Sport student Noah Harvey went on a weekend football trip to Wellington recently. He recounts his highlights here.

 I play right wing for the Nelson Suburbs 13th Grade Colts and have been playing since I was 6 years old.

The games [in Wellington] went really well. We played the Ole Football Academy on Saturday and were doing really well with a half time score of 2-1 but then we let them get the better of us in the second half losing 5-1. Sunday we played Swift Talent Centre (Karori high performance programme) and drew 3-3. Both great games and a great experience to play top academies.

The highlights of the trip were: everything! I loved it all. But if I had to choose a highlight, then it would be walking out onto the field with the teams. The player I walked out with was Jordan O’Doherty, a Western Sydney Wanderers player. He is a midfielder for their team. Jordan asked where I had come from and wanted to know if I was having a great time.

They had our team walk in with the back half of the players which meant half of our team were walking with the Phoenix and half were walking with the Wanderers. We had to hold their hand from when they left the tunnel to when we stood for the team photo. They didn’t sing an anthem or anything; the teams walked out onto the field and lined up (we lined up in front) and faced the cameras for a minute. Then they turned around and headed to their positions and we walked off in an orderly line.

It was Andrew Durante’s 250th game so a special haka was performed for him and his family which we were lucky enough to experience and witness. This happened before we walked onto the field. It was cold and windy, I felt sorry for the guys performing the haka.

Wellington definitely lives up to its Windy Wellington reputation. It didn’t stop blowing the whole time we were there!