Jack Fleming in action in Western’s recent Mainland Premier League clash against Nelson Suburbs. Photo Shutter Sport NelsonWhen Jack Fleming was running round playing football in the green and gold of Mid Canterbury, he never expected to be facing off against former All Whites and his football idols.

Now the no-nonsense centreback wears the red and black of Christchurch’s Western in the Mainland Premier League.

On the ladder of football in New Zealand, this is as good as it gets, bar the Canterbury United Dragons in the ISPS Handa Premiership, New Zealand’s national football premiership.

Starting off playing for Eastern in the local Ashburton competition, Fleming first made the step up to Mid Canterbury for the 12th grade Japanese tournament.

“The Japanese teams were meant to come out here but it was the bird flu year so it was just a national tournament,” he said.

Only a few years later, at around age 15, Fleming was making his debut for the Mid Canterbury Seniors side.

“It was fun, it was definitely a step up,” he said.

“Everyone was a lot stronger than me because I was quite small.”

Fleming bounced between the youth and senior sides until he finished school and moved to Christchurch to attend university.

There, he moved to his current club Western, starting out in their reserve squad.

“It was definitely harder. It was a whole different level of commitment required, and there is a lot of hard work involved,” he said.

Fleming was handed his first start for the first team in the English Cup against Christchurch football giants CashTech.

“I was marking the top-goal-scorer of all time in the league, Michael White, which was pretty challenging,” he said.

“Also there are the guys like Aaron Clapham and Ben Sigmund who were playing.

“You can tell they have played at that international level because they were the best players on the field by far.”

In the game, Fleming was given the unenviable task of marking Sigmund on corners.

“I think I only won one header against him,” he said.

Fleming’s first season could easily be labelled a success after he picked up the reserve team’s player of the year, the first team’s young player of the year and the most promising player award.

“Getting them was a pretty big surprise, I had only really spent a month in the first team,” he said.

Despite making the switch to Christchurch, Fleming was more than happy to pull on the Mid Canterbury kit for one more run at the Lotto U-19 Tournament in Christchurch.

It was at the tournament in 2015 where Fleming said one of his proudest footballing moments came, when he scored the winning goal in the quarter-final against CashTech.

The side went on to finish fourth in the tournament, losing in the third/fourth playoff to Selwyn United 1-0.

Being a Manchester United fan growing up, Fleming said his favourite player was Wayne Rooney, while fellow centrebacks Carlos Puyol and Ben Sigmund provided inspiration.

Fleming said his main goals are to avoid relegation with Western this season, before focusing on picking up more wins and possibly picking up some silverware in the coming seasons.

By Jaime Pitt-MacKay © The Ashburton Guardian - 3 August 2017