Media release
19 December 2016
Homecoming as top football coach secures top club role
Bob Sova, one of the three most highly qualified football coaches in New Zealand, has been appointed as First Team Coach
and Director of Football with Waitemata Football Club.
In something of a twist, Sova got into coaching years ago at Waitemata. He was 25 and had torn his knee ligaments when
club captain Ken Arthur approached him in the clubrooms and told him there was a problem with the 13 grade C team.
Sova wasn’t interested, but Arthur was persistent. “I fronted up for the Wednesday session and went from there.”
His most recent post was as coach of Wairarapa in the Central League in 2014, with his team coming third in the Central
Men’s League.
Sova had a seven-year spell at Central Federation from 2003 as director of football, building the game up from virtually
nothing. When he arrived there was not even an office. There were no rep teams, programmes, academies or game
development officers or coaches.
During his time at Central Federation, Sova worked as director and staff coach on NZ Football regional and national
academies, and he has conducted numerous coach education courses. While director of football with the Central Federation
he was responsible for nine Federation and 40 rep teams.
He also coached the Central Federation senior women’s team in the NZF national women’s league competition for three
years and coached the national youth league with Central Federation, taking it to its highest-ever finish of fourth; and
he won it with Auckland.
In 2008 Sova took on the role of assistant coach with YoungHeart Manawatu. He then took over as coach for three years,
had a break, then took on the coaching role at Wairarapa.
Sova says he doesn’t have an overarching goal in soccer.
“What I enjoy about coaching is the dressing room banter, the smell of liniment and thinking about and implementing
strategies and tactics. It’s a never-ending, upward spiral of learning.”
Waitemata AFC is a semi-professional club in Auckland whose First Team competes in the the NRFL Division 1.