Skip to main content

Story: Sports and leisure

All Whites football team, 1981

Image
All Whites football team, 1981

The most popular sport among young New Zealand men is football, partly because it is considered safer than rugby, and also because the sport receives good coverage on television. The New Zealand representative team, the All Whites, qualified for FIFA World Cup finals in 1982 and 2010. This photo of the All Whites squad was taken before the team played its first qualifying game in April 1981.

Using this item

New Zealand Soccer

This item has been provided for private study purposes (such as school projects, family and local history research) and any published reproduction (print or electronic) may infringe copyright law. It is the responsibility of the user of any material to obtain clearance from the copyright holder.

All images & media in this story

How to cite this page

Jock Phillips, Sports and leisure – Organised sports, Te Ara – the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/2287/all-whites-football-team-1981 (accessed 4 June 2026).

Story by Jock Phillips, published 15 January 2010, updated 1 September 2015.