Robert "Bobby" Ronald Almond (born 16 April 1951 in England) was a

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who represented

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

and was part of the first New Zealand side to contest a

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

in 1982.

Career

Almond was a part of the

Leyton Orient Leyton Orient Football Club is a professional football club based in Leyton, East London, England, who compete in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. They are the second oldest football club in London to play at a profession ...

and

Tottenham Hotspur Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, commonly referred to as Tottenham () or Spurs, is a professional football club based in Tottenham, London, England. It competes in the Premier League, the top flight of English football. The team has playe ...

youth set-ups and a first team player for Walthamstow Avenue in the Isthmian League before he emigrated to New Zealand in 1973. Almond made his New Zealand debut in a 1–0 win over Australia on 13 June 1979. He pulled on the All White strip a total of 49 times between 1978 and 1982, although only 28 were full A-internationals. He was a member the All Whites squad at the 1982 FIFA World Cup in Spain, playing in all 15 qualifiers, and started two games at the finals, the 5–2 loss to

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and 4–0 loss to

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, having to sit out the game against

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

with an Achilles tendon injury. Almond retired from international football following their elimination. Almond co-authored a book, ''To Spain the Hard Way'', with Steve Sumner and Derrick Mansbridge, chronicling the experience.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Almond, Bobby 1951 births Living people English footballers New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in England English emigrants to New Zealand Association football central defenders Naturalised citizens of New Zealand New Zealand international footballers New Zealand association footballers 1980 Oceania Cup players 1982 FIFA World Cup players