Bay defender holds on to play-off ambitions | Hawkes Bay News | Local News in Hawkes Bay

MARAMA Thompson looks skywards and takes a swig on his water bottle as if to thank the stars.

It's not Park Island but Te Awa in Napier, as the 19-year-old Hawke's Bay United soccer player takes a breather from his back-breaking work at the construction site from 7.30am to 5pm.

That is not to say he is averse to the idea of shining on the field or shying away from star status.

He has been lugging blocks, mixing concrete and shovelling gravel for the past fortnight but yesterday's scorching sun was a timely reminder of what his football career means to him.

"Yeah, I get exhausted and on days like today I have headaches but I work with a good bunch of guys," Thompson tells SportToday before Sunday's final round of the New Zealand Football Championship. The Bay face table-toppers Auckland City at Bluewater Stadium, Napier, in the 2pm kick off.

The hosts have a mathematical chance of making the play-offs on goal difference provided they beat the city slickers and keep their fingers crossed other results go their way.

Thompson believes they can beat the defending champions after losing 2-1 away to them on January 10.

"The last time we should have got a result. We dominated but didn't put away some of the opportunities we created," the rightback says of the game against the defending champions.

"I reckon the boys will be up for it this time.

"It'll be the first time we'll make the play-offs and that's what our goal was at the start of the season."

Thompson knows all about leading a life in harmony with nature. He grew up in a hippie commune at Colville, about 30 minutes drive from the Coromandel, with his parents, Paul and Lucia, and his two younger brothers.

His passion for soccer grew there despite not having the luxury of watching English Premier League on TV.

"I used to listen to the game on the radio because there was no power where we lived.

"We did everything by candle light and heated water for showers on the fireplace.

"We used to make our bow and arrows and go hunting and fishing with dad," he says of his father, who picked up his surfboard in his heyday and toured the United States.

He attended a school with a roll of 40 and his father used to help muster pupils to play soccer.

"We made up a team and entered a division and won it for two years in a row.

"After that I got a call up to the Thames Valley [age-group] rep team and so I started moving my eye up," says the defender, who started playing as a midfielder before enjoying the view on the field as a centreback.

When his mother moved to Waikato, Thompson followed before shifting to Napier to be close to his father's family and also attend Napier Boys' High School.

"Dad's helped me to get to where I am today. He's given me some positive feedback and brought me down here to further my career."

Playing other sport didn't interest him, despite an approach at NBHS to play basketball.

When the NZFC season ends, he and football-playing girlfriend Letitia Cleary are hoping to jet off to Australia where he intends to play in the State League.

Teammate Sam Halligan, who arranged his construction work here, is trying to find him a team.

"He got this job so that if I like it then I can do that there too," he says, but is wary of the heat in cities such as Perth and Brisbane.

He's putting his sports and recreation degree on the backburner after a year and so is Cleary, a nursing student at the Eastern Institute of Technology.

"Letitia wants to play there too. She's doing 45-hour shifts in a packhouse to save money but it's pretty boring work," he says of Cleary, who plays for the Napier City Rovers first division women's team in winter.

Thompson, whose goal is to make the cut in the A-League some day, also intends to do his country proud at the 2012 London Olympics.

"They'll have [talent] scouts there so that's good, too."

Playing alongside former Auckland Kingz and All Whites defender Jonathon Taylor for three seasons in division one and Central League competitions in winter.

Skipper Taylor, English import Stuart Ferguson and Halligan are the key players in the Bay defence.

"JT and Macca [player/assistant coach Chris McIvor] have helped the young players a lot," said Thompson, who is one of the youngsters in the Bay squad to come of age this NZFC season.

He still plays for the Bay academy side in the Lion Foundation Youth League, enjoying last Sunday's 7-0 away thumping of Auckland-Manukau. The youth side are playing in the curtain-raiser from 11am to the Bay's NZFC match this Sunday.

Come next summer, Thompson will return home.

So will the nucleus of a Bay team, he believes, who have what it takes to make a competitive unit.