Barry Smith has spent more than 60 years meticulously gathering, organising and preserving the statistical history of football in New Zealand.
His records stretch from grassroots leagues to the national game. Through decades of tireless dedication, he has undeniably become the sport’s most influential custodian of its recorded memory.
Now 87, after downsizing his Auckland home, Smith was left with a problem.
Main photo: Barry Smith … New Zealand’s football historian.
What should he do with this collection? And how could he preserve the paper records for future generations of football fans?
Enter the NZ Football Foundation, a charitable trust established with funds earned from New Zealand’s participation in the 2010 FIFA Men’s World Cup.
“We visited his home to find three rooms piled from floor to ceiling with scrap books of newspaper articles, match day programmes and photo’s dating back to 1899. This wasn’t just a collection, it was a lifetime’s work,” the foundation says.
The foundation sought commercial quotes for digitising the archives.
The quotes ranged from $200,000 to $400,000, well outside the foundation’s reach.
“We had to get creative.”
Part of the Barry Smith collection.
In early 2025, led by interns and passionate volunteers, the foundation began their project to convert Smith’s archives to a digital library.
So far, more than 25,000 pages have been scanned and nearly 10,000 meta-tagged within a searchable AI-driven filing system.
This means Smith’s archive will be accessible to all New Zealanders and quickly searchable by player/coach name, club, date, article author, photographer and other tags.
Long-term, the foundation hopes the records of other football enthusiasts will be able to join Smith’s archive to create an accessible online football library for everyone to use.
How you can help
You can help complete this project by volunteering your skills, or making a donation (see below for link).
Full training will be given for two roles sought by the foundation:
Collection curation (based in Auckland)
Meta-tagging (can be done online from anywhere)
Contact: info@footballfoundation.org.nz.
How did it all start?
Smith’s passion for numbers and football began when he was still a teenager.
At 15, he decided to compile a football annual that listed results, appearances and key facts about the game in Aotearoa.
Using his pocket money, he paid a typist to assemble his first collection of records, then distributed that booklet to football associations across the country. That early work planted the seed for what would eventually become one of the most comprehensive football archives in New Zealand.
Over time, Smith’s collection grew to include league tables, cup histories and player statistics that simply did not exist in any centralised form.
Clubs and regional leagues regularly relied on his research to fill gaps in their own histories. If someone needed to know who held a national appearance record, or how often a player featured in the Chatham Cup, Smith was often the only source with reliable answers.
Smith edited the New Zealand Soccer Annual for 15 years, shaping how the game’s yearly history was documented and referenced. He also contributed statistical material to books and research projects that helped establish a clearer picture of football’s development in New Zealand.
For years, Barry Smith edited the New Zealand Soccer Annual.
His work was not only about numbers. It was about preserving the stories and context behind those figures.
His contribution to the game has been widely recognised.
Smith served for many years as honorary historian for New Zealand Football and is a life member of the NZ Football Media Association.
In 2018, Friends of Football awarded him the Medal of Excellence, acknowledging more than six decades of dedication to recording and protecting the sport’s history.
In 2020, Smith was awarded the Queen’s Service Medal for services to football. The honour reflected both the length of his contribution and its lasting impact. Without his work, large parts of New Zealand football’s statistical record would simply not exist.
Smith’s personal archive has long been used by historians, journalists, clubs and supporters.
Now, with the help of the foundation, his collection will benefit the sport for generations to come.
For Smith, the project represents the continuation of a lifelong mission. For the foundation, it is an investment in the game’s collective memory.
About the NZ Football Foundation
The New Zealand Football Foundation is a charitable trust established in 2010 following the All Whites’ qualification for the FIFA Men’s World Cup. Since then, the foundation has distributed millions of dollars to projects, programmes and initiatives across the country. Its vision is that no one is left on the sidelines, with support directed towards participation, development, inclusion and long-term growth of the game.
Supporting the foundation
The foundation relies on donations to support its work, including projects such as the preservation of Barry Smith’s football archive. Contributions of any size help fund initiatives that strengthen football at all levels. Support can be provided through one-off donations, regular giving or legacy contributions, helping protect both the future and the history of the game.
HOW TO DONATE: Click here to support the foundation >>>>
This story was first published on February 10, 2026.