Where does ‘Go Media Stadium’ sit in the history of this country’s biggest sporting grounds getting new names for money?

First it got new blue seats, now it has a new name. When the Warriors play their next home game in Auckland, they will officially be playing at “Go Media Stadium”, formerly known as Mount Smart, after a new naming rights sponsorship deal was announced between the outdoor advertising company and Auckland Stadiums earlier this week.

Naming rights deals are one of the small joys of following sport in the professional era. You never know when you’re going to wake up and find out the team you’ve supported for years now plays at a stadium that sounds like it was sponsored by the last dregs of the Public Interest Journalism Fund in a desperate attempt to boost industry morale.

Some new stadium names end up enhancing the general vibe so much you forget what they ever used to be called. Others you go to great lengths to avoid ever having to say out loud. So where does Go Media Stadium fit into the history of New Zealand stadiums’ naming rights sponsorships? There’s only one way to find out and that’s by ranking them all from least to biggest improvement.

(Parameters: Stadiums only – NO INDOOR ARENAS. Must host or have hosted regular first-class rugby or cricket.)

27. Semenoff Stadium

It might sound like the name of a specialist cleaning product but the home of Northland rugby is in fact named after Whangārei heavy transport magnate cum former mayor Stan Semenoff, whose company the Stan Semenoff Group secured the naming rights to Okara Park in 2019.

26. CET Arena

The Central Energy Trust or CET Arena sounds a little too close to “CTE” for comfort – NZ Rugby and the ACC should probably put in a combined bid to be revert it back to Palmerston North Showgrounds. The home of the Manawatu Turbos was also known as FMG Stadium until 2015, when the rural insurer dumped them and started sponsoring Hamilton’s rugby ground instead.

25. FMG Stadium Waikato

For most of the 20th century Hamilton had the perfect stadium name in “Rugby Park”, which it shared with Invercargill, Gisborne and every other no-nonsense city and town in the country. But a 1999 redevelopment saw it renamed Waikato Stadium before Farmers’ Mutual Group signed a 10-year naming rights deal in 2015 to rearrange the words to FMG Stadium Waikato.

24. Kennards Hire Community Oval

Twickenham has “The Stoop”; Eden Park has “Kennards Hire Community Oval”. It doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, but then how many other ovals on this list are available to be hired by the community? (An earlier version of this ranking wrongly claimed that Kennards Hire Community Oval couldn’t be hired by the community. According to a spokesperson from Eden Park it actually can – including the cricket pitch – and that’s why they called it Kennards Hire Community Oval. It has been moved up one spot in the ranking to reflect this.)

23. Cello Basin Reserve

It might sound like the first three words of the secure passphrase you’ve got written down somewhere in case you ever get locked out of your crypto wallet, but Cello Basin Reserve is in fact the current name of Wellington and New Zealand’s home of test cricket. Cello is a New Zealand-based “solution-led network partner” which could honestly mean anything. (Part of the deal involved them installing wifi at the ground.)

22. Trust Bank Park

21. WestpacTrust Park

20. Westpac Park

The changing names of Hamilton’s cricket ground from 1990-2006 tells the complete story of a trans-Tasman banking merger, which is something not many stadiums in the world can boast. It has since reverted back to its original name of Seddon Park, though if the petition I’m drafting up is successful it will soon be known as Simon Doull Stadium. 

19. WestpacTrust Stadium

18. Westpac Stadium

The Australian banking giant was already mid-takeover when it secured the naming rights to Wellington’s new stadium in 1999. The fact that it immediately became better known as “the Cake Tin” probably tells you everything you need to know about the appeal of its sponsored name.

17. ASB Baypark Stadium

16. Trustpower Baypark Stadium

If you need any further proof that banks are making too much profit, just look at how many times they feature on this list. ASB assumed naming rights of the Mount Maunganui venue that’s been home to both the Bay of Plenty Steamers and a variety of motorsports in 2013, making a very generic stadium name (“Baypark Stadium” – the “AUT University” of stadia) even more boring. Power company Trustpower took over naming rights for the stadium in 2018 and failed to offer any significant improvement.

15. Western Bay Finance Stadium

14. Bluechip Stadium

The argument for unexciting bank and power companies sponsoring your stadium: it’s a lot less stressful than being sponsored by an embattled finance company. Before ASB and Trustpower, Baypark was sponsored by Western Bay Finance (a “turbulent relationship”) and Blue Chip (“troubled”). While the latter did make quite a cool stadium name, some things just aren’t worth the hassle.

13. Navigation Homes Stadium

Growers Stadium is a perfect name for a provincial rugby stadium, right up there with Yarrow Stadium in New Plymouth and second only to the various Rugby Parks. But to keep the lights on, Pukekohe’s home of Counties Manukau rugby currently goes by the name Navigation Homes Stadium, which is so close to sounding cool and yet really, really far.

12. Bayer Growers Stadium

Global healthcare and agriculture group Bayer had the right idea when they cautiously slipped their name in front of the already perfect Growers Stadium in 2009, but in reality a new sponsor trying to keep everybody happy by adding their name to the old name rarely works. Would have been better if they’d just gone all-in and called it Bayer Stadium.

11. Forsyth Barr Stadium

When you look at the words “Forsyth Barr” what do you see? The main image it conjures for me is an old-fashioned gentleman with a conspicuous moustache. Could I be thinking of Bruce Forsyth? Steve Parr? I can’t help but feel Forsyth Barr, which is actually an investment and wealth management service, is totally the wrong vibe for New Zealand’s first and only roofed stadium.

10. AMI Stadium

Something darkly ironic about Christchurch’s Lancaster Park being sponsored by an insurance company at the time it was written off beyond repair by the 2011 earthquake. This cursed moniker was then transferred to the temporary* new home of Canterbury rugby, formerly known as Rugby League Park, from 2012 to 2019.

9. QBE Stadium

As three-letter corporate acronyms go, insurance company QBE has a certain je ne sais quoi that few others can match. It’s all in the Q at the start, which makes it sound like an honour bestowed for services to North Harbour rugby (Troy Flavell, QBE). From 2014-2019, it helped the Albany sporting complex sound a lot fancier than it really is.

8. Go Media Stadium

Appreciate the sentiment, but I can’t help but feel this sets a dangerous precedent. If this is allowed then what’s to stop some disgruntled millionaire from coming along and sponsoring a Fuck The Media Stadium. Our stadia should probably have to be more impartial.

7. Coopers Catch Park

It might sound like a random A-League venue in semi-rural New South Wales but Coopers Catch Park was actually what Eden Park was called for one week in 2020 as part of an ASB marketing stunt. The bank renamed the stadium after a Kaikōura fish and chip shop doing it tough in Covid times – the sole game to be played at Coopers Catch was a Bledisloe Cup test in which the All Blacks battered the Wallabies 27-7. 

6. ECOlight Stadium

Hear me out: ECOlight Stadium is what Forsyth Stadium should be called. The energy-efficient lighting company, which sponsored Growers Stadium in Pukekohe for a couple of years in the 2010s, is a perfect vibe-match for Dunedin’s giant greenhouse – I can already hear a high country Otago accent saying “Going to the Highlanders at ECOlight at the weekend”, and it just sounds right. 

5. Orangetheory Stadium

It might sound like something that gets discussed at great length on the Joe Rogan podcast but Orangetheory is in fact the name of a gym franchise where everybody’s heart rate gets put up on a big screen. The current moniker of the Christchurch stadium originally known as Rugby League Park is one of the better stadium names in the country at the moment, though it’s arguably better if you don’t know what Orangetheory is.

4. Sky Stadium

Westpac held the naming rights to Wellington’s largest stadium pretty much from the moment it opened in 1999 until the 1st of January 2020. That should be enough time for it to form some kind of long-lasting attachment in people’s minds… and yet it’s already been forgotten because the new name is so good. It’s hard to imagine a more simple, perfect combination of words than “Sky Stadium” – sounds like a level in Super Mario Bros game.

3. Toll Stadium

“Toll Stadium” also sounds like it could be a Super Mario Bros level, but it’s the really hard one one where Bowser lives. The transport and logistics giant sponsored Whangārei’s newly-revamped Okara Park facility for most of the 2010s, lending the ground a fearsomely brutalist aura. In a fair and just world, Toll Stadium would have become the country’s most formidable rugby fortress. 

2. Ericsson Stadium

Part of the reason Go Media Stadium faces such an uphill battle to make a lasting impact is that the stadium already got it so right the first time. Cellular phone company Ericsson attached its name to Mount Smart in 1995, just in time for the Warriors inaugural season. It was a case of right place, right time – though the sponsorship ended in 2006, Ericsson remains almost as inextricably tied to the Warriors brand as DB Bitter, Vodafone and the Mad Butcher. 

1. Jade Stadium

It took sports fans a long time to adjust to Lancaster Park’s new name back in 1998, but in hindsight there is something impossibly beautiful about the idea of a “Jade Stadium” – a phrase every bit as evocative and mysterious as London’s “Crystal Palace” football club. New Zealand software company Jade held the naming rights to the Christchurch stadium until 2007, and though it never exactly suited its industrial surrounds, Jade Stadium still stands as this country’s greatest ever stadium name.

How the first openly gay professional men’s footballer – one of England’s most headline-grabbing stars of the 80s and 90s – ended his career playing for a Wellington club side in New Zealand’s summer league.

This story was originally published on the author’s Substack newsletter, Two Halves.

Justin Fashanu’s life was extraordinary, tumultuous and, ultimately, short. The English footballer died 25 years ago this month, at the age of 37.

Fashanu’s professional career began with Norwich City in 1978, and combusted into life with a stunning goal of the season against Liverpool in 1980. He went on to become Britain’s first £1 million Black footballer when he transferred to European champions Nottingham Forest the following season.

He remains best known, however, as the first openly gay professional men’s footballer, coming out publicly in 1990.

Less well known is the story of how one of the most headline-grabbing figures in English football came to end his playing career in the relative peace and quiet of New Zealand’s National Football League. This is the story of Justin Fashanu’s season with Wellington’s Miramar Rangers.

Ahead of another summer of football, Miramar Rangers were struggling to find a striker to spearhead their attack. An attempt to lure Mount Maunganui goal machine Alan Lamb had failed, and head coach John Cameron was struggling for options. 

Then, out of the blue, he received a call from New Zealand Football development officer Glenn Turner with a proposition that sounded too good to be true.

Prior to his role at NZF, Turner, who passed away last year, worked as a physical educator in Fashanu’s home county of Norfolk and the two were close. Turner was aware of Miramar’s striker shortage and felt Justin might be the solution. He wouldn’t even be the first Fashanu to play for the club – younger brother John, perhaps better known to New Zealanders as the former co-presenter of 90s UK TV classic Gladiators, played for the club on loan in 1982.

Suddenly, Miramar’s boss had the chance to bring a player of real international pedigree to the Peninsula.

Some reservations remained, however. Not around Fashanu’s sexuality or his regular appearances in the UK tabloids – these were strictly sporting reservations. A series of severe knee injuries had forced Fashanu into a somewhat nomadic late career. In the eight years prior to his New Zealand adventure, he had played for 15 clubs across England, Canada, Scotland, Sweden and the United States. 

“We did have a bit of a concern not knowing enough about his physical wellbeing,” Cameron explains. “So as a club, we agreed it was best to offer Justin to come out here so we could meet him firsthand and organise for a game to be played. Then we could run our eye over him and be comfortable that he was a viable option physically.”

To Cameron’s amazement, Fashanu agreed. With the start of the season rapidly approaching, a friendly was hastily arranged between Miramar and a Wellington Invitational XI in Petone one Tuesday night.

“It was quite incredible,” Cameron recalls. “I think there was a crowd of about 4,000 people that turned up and Justin shined, including getting a goal. We quickly endeavoured to put a deal together to bring him over for the summer season.” 

Some entrepreneurial contacts helped put a financial package together, involving accommodation and a motor vehicle. A few weeks later, Fashanu was lining up in Hamilton for his New Zealand National League debut against Melville United.  

Teammates remember Fashanu as a hard-working, happy and willing striker with none of the baggage or primadonna tendencies you might expect for a player once worth seven figures. In fact, one of the main things that stood out about Fashanu was his ahead-of-its-time skincare regimen – several of his former teammates today reminisce about “Fash’s potions” with joy.

Future All Whites goalkeeper James Bannatyne was just a youngster when Fashanu joined the club. The age gap meant he didn’t get to know Fashanu well, but his qualities on the pitch shone through. 

“I have two memories of Justin that really stand out,” says Bannatyne. “One was that lotion,” he jokes.

“The other was a header that was probably better than Grant Turner’s famous one against Australia. What a header, one of the best you’ll ever see. It was an absolute demonstration of his raw quality. He was in his mid-30s but he still had that timing and quality.”

On the pitch, Fashanu performed well, scoring 12 goals in 18 games in what was ultimately a disappointing season for Miramar Rangers, who missed out on a playoff spot. Off the pitch, however, is where he really had an impact. Cameron recalls the increased fanfare and attendance whenever “Fash” was playing – he added a glamour and celebrity the local football scene had seldom seen before.

Away from the spotlight, Fashanu was also keen to give back. He helped two local talents earn soccer scholarships at US universities, he judged at a fashion event at the Wellington Cup and was a regular visitor to the child cancer unit at Wellington Hospital. When he died, a father of one young boy being treated for a brain tumour spoke of his son’s anguish at the passing of “My Justin”.

This was a far cry from the Fashanu often portrayed in the British media. Although he wasn’t always entirely blameless – the admission he had tried to sell fake stories to a national newspaper about alleged gay relationships with MPs had cost him his job at Scottish club Hearts in 1994 – Fashanu had become a magnet for negative press coverage since coming out in 1990. But his eight months in New Zealand passed without scandal.

“There were always rumours that appeared to follow him, but not when he was out here,” says Cameron. “He was gregarious, no doubt, and always a human headline, but all I can say is that in New Zealand, he was a human headline for all the right reasons and was just a really good thing for football.”

In Cameron, Fashanu had a coach clearly disinterested in the widely-reported aspects of his personal life. That hadn’t always been the case in England. 

Not only did Fashanu suffer homophobia from members of the UK press and football supporters, he also faced it from his own managers. The legendary Brian Clough, who made him a £1m player with his move to Nottingham Forest in 1981, eventually admitted his cruelty toward Fashanu. He once infamously threatened to call the police on him when Fashanu refused a transfer to Derby County.

Fashanu found no such trouble in Wellington. “His sexuality was never really a thing,” says Cameron. “I never witnessed or recall – and I’m sure I would’ve found out if it had happened – any kind of hostility or anything like that.”

Fashanu’s experience has long been held up as a cautionary tale against coming out in the men’s game. He is often cited as an example of why there are so few openly gay male footballers. Indeed, it took more than three decades for the UK’s next active professional male footballer to come out as gay.

As former teammate and All White David Chote recalls, Fashanu’s sexuality was simply a non-issue in the sheds at Miramar.

“I had been in the UK in the eighties and Justin was a big name then and the attention he got was nasty really,” Chote says. “I think he felt comfortable in the New Zealand environment, away from any dramas in relation to his private life where he could play football and have an adventure.

“He wasn’t at all in the closet or anything like that. There was no secrecy or scandal because his private life was public. If he had boyfriends they’d be at the club, if he didn’t they wouldn’t be at the club. He was open, totally open.”

After eight months, Fashanu left New Zealand to take up a coaching role in Maryland, USA. The final game of his 20-year football career came against Christchurch side Woolston in March of 1997.

The following March, Fashanu once again ran into controversy when he was accused of the alleged sexual assault of a 17-year-old in Ellicott City, Howard County. In a state where homosexuality was still illegal, Fashanu denied the allegations and made a hasty return to England.

On May 2, 1998 – just 14 months after his time in New Zealand came to an end – Fashanu was dead. His cause of death was suicide. 

His death came as a shock to those who knew Fashanu during his time in the capital. 

“He struck me as a good guy who really cared about people and had a nice tone about him,” says Bannatyne. “I was really shocked and sad.”   

While his death was reported crudely by certain sections of the UK press, in New Zealand tributes poured in for a man who, in the words of his boss Cameron, “just wanted to be liked and loved.”

In the decades since, Fashanu has entered England’s National Football Museum Hall of Fame, and a petition for his statue to be erected outside Norwich’s Carrow Road ground began gathering pace late last year. A dramatic televisual retelling of his life and relationship with his brother has just been commissioned.

“If people feel comfortable with me as a person, then my sexuality is not important,” Fashanu once said. In New Zealand, that seems to be what he got.

It was perhaps the perfect way to end his playing career, one which ignited so dramatically with that timeless goal against Liverpool before encountering such divisive controversy in relation to his sexuality. Fashanu finished his playing career as he started it, carefree and with a smile on his face.

As is often the case when it comes to footballers, Fashanu’s time in New Zealand is probably best summed up by a teammate – an impression of him forged in battle at grounds across the nation.

“I recall Justin laughing a lot and smiling a lot,” recalls his old attacking partner Chote. “I remember him being friendly and gregarious – all these adjectives for someone who is having a really good time.”

“He was and still is a very positive memory for me, both on and off the pitch.”