“Yeah, pretty much on that Monday before the official announcement [March 12] I thought we might be gone,” Seatter admitted to www.au.fourfourtwo.com yesterday from Auckland.

However, by Tuesday, a call came through about Terry Serepisos’s potential interest via a third party and by Wednesday Seatter was on a plane to Wellington as the bid heads met with the property developer.

“The Hyundai A-League is such a fantastic competition that even when I thought we might be gone, I just even then couldn’t bring myself to believe we wouldn’t be in it. It would’ve been such a lost opportunity.

“It’s a competition that’s just getting better and better and we would’ve been standing to one side watching it improve and thinking we could’ve been part of that but we were not.

“We would’ve always been reflecting on that lost opportunity,” added Seatter.

Check out the up-coming feature on the machinations of New Zealand’s desperate bid to stay in the A-League coming soon to www.au.fourfourtwo.com. In it Seatter outlines how the deal eventually went through and reveals the personal tragedy which fuelled Serepisos’ desire for a football team in Wellington.