Vinnie Lia and the case of the missing shoes

Football teams are notoriously endowed with pranksters so Vince Lia’s first thought when he got back to the dressing room in Morwell after the Phoenix’ unlucky 1-0 loss to Melbourne Heart was that someone was taking the mickey.

Why else, he thought, would his brand new pair of Nike trainers be missing from on top of his bag, which was tucked away under his seat.

Alarm bells started ringing as time passed and none of his team mates had owned up to hiding his lovely new shoes.

Quizzing the security guard charged with keeping the Phoenix dressing room safe brought a response that no one had got past him.

Perhaps it was, as he first thought, a team mate having a laugh at his expense because after all Lia isn’t exactly blameless when it comes to pranks.

But then came the thought that pranks aren’t usually played on game day.

The trainers still hadn’t turned up when the team set off for Melbourne after dinner at their hotel and that was when Lia realised they really had been pinched.

Arriving back at Wellington Airport in his flip flops, an indignant Lia said he was disappointed such a thing could happen. Making it even worse was that the shoes should go missing in his native Victoria.

“This is the A-League, Australasia’s professional football competition and you shouldn’t have to worry about what you leave in the dressing room. It should be secure,” Lia said.

“Whoever took them must have really liked them because my phone and wallet were in my pocket hung up above where I’d left them and those items were still there.

“In that sense I was lucky because I can get another pair of trainers, it would have been a lot worse to lose the phone and wallet.”

Happy homecoming it definitely wasn’t for the popular midfielder.

No points and no trainers. It just wasn’t Vinnie’s day.