“COVENY, Coveny, he used to be fast, he used to be fast. Coveny, Coveny, he used to be fast, he used to be fast.”

The term ‘good servant’ conjures up images of a hard-working, talented, but unspectacular sportsman who gave his all but never really reached the top. In the case of Vaughan Coveny, it is those exact things that have made him so great.

“17 years of graft and determination” is how Ricki Herbert has described Cov’s career, and the strength of character and professionalism that Coveny has shown over those 17 years should make him a good example to every young player of how to reach your best and have a long career playing the game you love.

And even though he is no Brazilian star brought up on Futsal, he wasn’t just a player who ran and ran and never gave up. He could score goals, in fact he scored a lot of them, and at a rate of about one every three games during his league career and closer to one every two for the All Whites, his 64 caps garnering 28 goals, the most scored by any Kiwi in the white shirt.

As well as being one of the best strikers this country has ever produced, he was just as much a servant to Australian club football as he was the NZ national team. At his retirement press conference yesterday he estimated that he played more than 300 games for South Melbourne where he was an absolute star.

Those 300 games included 247 league appearances and 88 goals, to go with the 12 scored in 24 appearances in the NSL for his previous club Wollongong Wolves, and 13 in 41 games for the Newcastle Jets in the A-League.

His career may be finishing after a barren two years for Wellington Phoenix, but from words said by both Herbert and Coveny’s protégé Shane Smeltz, it appears as though the ‘old man’ has relished the chance to play professional football in his home town and has played a huge role in off-field leadership, surely helping shape the mentality of our playing squad and teaching our young strikers a thing or two.

He wants to get into youth coaching, exactly what players of his immense experience should do. Here’s hoping he comes back to Wellington to coach the youth team, for which he is among many advocates, or even on the senior coaching staff.

In fact, I’m sort of surprised he isn’t moving into that role immediately, though after 17 years of football one can hardly blame him for wanting to devote his time to his family.

Herbert said Covs has ‘touched a lot people’s hearts’, and here’s hoping we get to give him a fond farewell on Sunday, because he has earned himself a lot of respect on both sides of the Tasman, and despite what we sing at the Ring of Fire, he’s still pretty quick.