Happy birthday Auckland FC!  

This week the franchise turned one.  

My, how they’ve grown.  

A diapered bundle of joy, who in the space of merely a year has grown from bonny baby, eyes full of wonder, through a precocious upstart stage and now onto a confident and accomplished youngster – all within a year.  

Talk about maturation.  

The extraordinary growth spurt has taken the entire A-League by surprise. It’s shocked them as well I’d say.  

Potential is one thing. Early bluster another. Sustained growth is something else.  

Can the club continue to nourish this accelerated pace and cap off what has been a monumental debut season with the glory of a title? This is an outcome which their fans would prematurely exalt as a distinct possibility, but one the fledgling outfit themselves would daren’t consider.   

Many eggs, no chickens yet.  

They have turned one, completed their first orbit of the sun.  

We’ve all seen shooting stars illuminate the dark, only to burn out and fall, their majestic incandescence leaving just a fond memory.  

For the growing legions of fans, who have defined the super nova start of AKFC, let's hope the tail of this meteoric rise only disintegrates fully after lighting up the A-League final.