St Paul's Stars
St Paul's Player invited to West Bromwich Albion FC
In January this year, St Paul’s Collegiate School student, Stefan Krystman, was selected to attend, a New Zealand Football national training camp in Auckland. The camp was held over a period of a week. This was followed by an invitation to attend another training session with Premier Skills and Director of Coaching Roger Wilkinson and West Bromwich Albion Academy coach Aaron Danks. Following the NZ Professional Opportunities Courses, 2010, Stefan received a very positive written assessment of his skills from the West Bromwich staff. As a result, Stefan received a phone call from the United Kingdom that indicated they wished to see Stefan in the United Kingdom to assess how he would fit into the their environment.
Three players, two from New Zealand and one from Australia, were identified and selected by Aaron Danks and Roger Wilkinson during the 2010 Professional Opportunities courses in Hamilton and Wellington. The players, including Stefan, will travel to England and spend three weeks with the Championship club.
Stefan leaves in late July, this year, to spend time with the West Bromwich Albion Academy players. West Brom has been promoted to the premier league (with clubs like Manchester United, Chelsea and Liverpool etc), so it is rather significant for a young lad to be invited. He will be accommodated and looked after by the Academy while he is there. He will train Monday to Thursday with other Academy lads at West Brom. On Fridays he will undertake science tests. Saturday and Sunday will be actual game time. This routine is repeated over a few weeks. This is an amazing opportunity for Stefan.
This opportunity follows on from Chris Wood, a past pupil of St Paul's (and just by chance), also currently training with West Brom. Stefan is very excited about the possibility of meeting up with Chris.
Stefan is currently enjoying and learning lots from the terrific training sessions with coach Mike Groom and the XI lads.
Stefan in action for St Paul's
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Chris Wood - International Football Player
Chris Wood
New Zealand All Whites – 2009 -
West Bromich Albion, England – 2008
New Zealand U17 Football Representative – 2007
St Paul's Collegiate School (School House) – 2005-2008
Chris knew after he had played in Mexico that he was going to be part og the World Cup squad if he was injury free.
Chris is currently playing in four warm up games leading up to the World on June 15th.
These are against:
24 May vs Australia 2-1 to Australia Chris Killen scored NZ goal
29 May vs Serbia (15 in World rankings) 1-0 to All Whites
"Serbia could be one of the hardest games we have, including the World Cup,” said Herbert. “It’ll be a tough one to back up on after a lot of energy went into the Australia game, all the traveling and settling in but it’s the level of competition that we’ve asked for and we’ve freshened the team a bit with some players.”
Two other changes are forced on Herbert with teenage striker Chris Wood replacing Chris Killen, who has jetted back to the UK to get married, and Jeremy Christie coming in for injured vice-captain Tim Brown in midfield.
“Woodsy was always going to get an opportunity. I’ve been extremely pleased with what he’s done off the bench in the time that he’s had. It’ll be a tough game for him to play in but a really good benchmark for where he’s at.”
4 June vs Slovenia
9 June vs Chile
Find out more about Chris Wood
Michael Built
Michael Built
Football Scholarship to Northampton Town Football Club, England – 2009
New Zealand U17 Representative – 2009
St Paul's Collegiate School (Hall House) – 2005-2009
Find out more about Michael Built
Hayden Johns
Hayden Johns
Columbia University – 2008
Northfield Mont Herman School – 2006
St Paul's Collegiate School (Hamilton House) – 2000-2006
Find out more about Hayden Johns
Colin Murphy
Colin Murphy
USA U20 Football Squad – 2010
Boston College Full Football Scholarship – 2008
Northfield Mount Hermon School, USA – 2007-2008
New Zealand U17 Representative – 2007
St Paul's Collegiate School – 2005-2007
Find out more about Colin Murphy