It was another tough weekend for Melville with men's and women's northern league teams losing at home.

The men lost 1-3 to seventh-placed Western Springs, while the women were beaten 7-0 by third-placed Eastern Suburbs. Both teams are still seeking their first home win this season.

Goalkeeper Max Tommy (pictured above, centre) registered his 200th major appearance for Melville against Western Springs but could not keep the goals out as Ryan Watson opened the scoring in the 22nd minute.

Highlight for Melville was a levelling goal from returning midfielder Makaha Vieira Gall two minutes later, on first team debut, after having previously been a Melville U17 player.

Originally out of Tauranga Boys' College, Vieira Gall last year had a 3-month trial with Czech First League club Dukla Praha.

Springs retook the lead in the 76th minute through Caspar McGavin, who also added a third goal two minutes into stoppage time.

Meanwhile striker Jama Boss has returned from a short spell at Manukau and made an appearance off the bench. It was the seventh time Boss has signed for Melville and the fourth time he has left Manukau.

Also spotted last week in the clubrooms, back (from Sweden) was Thomas Cave, however it was unclear how long he has returned for.

For Melville it was their fourth home loss of the season. Melville are away to Auckland FC Reserves at 6pm on Saturday May 9.

Melville women's 0-7 loss to Auckland was their fourth successive home defeat of the season. Melville women's reserves lost 0-4. Melville women are away to Auckland United at 12 noon on Saturday May 9.

# First team coach Aaron Scott came off the bench for the Melville Reserves in their 5-5 home draw with Western Springs. Goalscorers were Callan Fraser (2), Vicente Mendez-Rea, Samuel James and Lukman Yasin Mire. Melville trailed 0-3 but rallied to lead 5-4 before conceding a 91st-minute equaliser.

# Max Tommy joined Steve Bettis, Stu Timings, Wayne Bates, Josh Billman, Aaron Scott and Gavin Douglas as having made 200 major appearances for Melville. However club historian Ron Anorak adds a footnote to this list, pointing out that as some of the qualifying appearances of Timings and Bettis pre-date the 1996 amalgamation between Melville AFC and Waikato United which formed Melville United, in the interests of consistency, there is an obvious case for also acknowledging the late Paul Gemmell, who made 238 appearances for predecessor club Waikato United between 1988-96.

Five factoids you never knew about Max Tommy

1. Mum Karin played for Melville women in 1990 when she was pregnant with Max.

2. Max speaks fluent German. It was the predominant language in his household as a youngster.

3. Max was a junior at Bay Olympic (where he also played striker) and has also played northern league for Wanderers Sports Club (two spells) and Three Kings United (as well as having spells in Germany and Australia).

4. His favourite goalkeeper is Der Titan, Oliver Khan (Bayern Munich and Germany, with 86 international caps from 1995-2006).

5. When Max won Melville player of the year for the second time in 2023 he was in Australia, and actually didn't learn of his success until 2024.

Article added: Thursday 07 May 2026