At 16, Cambridge footballer Luke Brooke-Smith is breaking records, and drawing attention as one of New Zealand’s most promising youngsters.

At 16 years and 199 days old, he made his debut in the Izusu Ute A-League, the premier professional competition for men’s football in New Zealand and Australia.

His appearance as a 75th-minute substitute for the Wellington Phoenix  against Western Sydney Wanderers in December meant he became the youngest ever player at the club, and the youngest New Zealander to play in the league.

After a whirlwind year in which he’s left home, rescheduled his schooling and become a professional footballer, Luke faces the prospect of playing at two age group FIFA World Cups.

WaiBOP caught up with Luke in January, after his third A-League appearance for the 'Nix.
 

Tell us about your first A League game experience. 
Throughout the season I’ve watching everyone training — obviously everyone in the group wants to be playing. But I’m young and I understood that, you know, I would sort of slowly build my way into the team. 

I had a good couple of weeks of training, and I was thinking, ‘you know what, maybe it could be right around the corner [that I get picked]’. And then I saw my name on the list to travel to Sydney. I was so excited. 

When I was at the game there was no promises of me going on. I felt like potentially I might get maybe five or 10 minutes. And then it got around the 75th minute and Chiefy [head coach Giancarlo Italiano] calls me over, brings me on, and it happened so quickly.  One minute I was warming up, next minute I was playing. 

And then you got to start the next two games.
Yeah, that was a big surprise as well. 

It was almost perfect timing because my parents were coming down for Christmas with my best friend and my little sister. 

So they came hoping that I was going to get on [the pitch]. And then two days before the game I got told I was starting. It was so cool. I got to walk out onto the pitch with my sister. 

Photo: Imray's Snaps // Luke Brooke-Smith (centre) walks onto the pitch with sister Casey in his first start for the Wellington Phoenix. 28 December 2024 vs Newcastle Jets (A 2-1 win for the 'Nix)

Photo: Imray's Snaps

Luke was invited to Wellington for a trial with the Phoenix in mid-2024. Coach Giancarlo Italiano (‘Chiefy’) liked what he saw, and he was signed on a three-year professional contract in August 2024, with the first two years on scholarship* terms. 

After his debut, Italiano said of Luke: “You saw he has a bit of unpredictability that I like, I don’t mean that in a negative way; I mean it in a real positive way. Sometimes you just don’t know what he’s going to do. As long as we can harness that ... I think we’ve got an exciting prospect.”

Tell us about moving to Wellington. You're 16, and is this the first time you've lived away from home? 
Yeah. I've been on two trials, one in Madrid for a month and one to Melbourne City for around 10 days. Those were the only two times I've been away for longer than a week. 
It was hard at the start. Just like the times I wasn’t training and I wasn’t busy and I didn't know anyone to turn to straight away because I didn't have as many friends in Wellington or family or anything. 

Are you boarding there or are you in a homestay? 
I'm on site where we train [ New Zealand Campus of Innovation and Sport]. I have my own dorm. There's no one in here right now, so it’s quite quiet. But the academy** have got 40 dorms opening up, so loads of academy players are going to be moving in in the next couple of weeks which will be good. It's going to be good to have people around my age. At the start of next season, hopefully I’ll flat with a couple of other boys.

Have you left school? 
I finished Year 11 early, just before I came to Wellington, which was really, really lucky. There’s no school here on campus. 

I'm going to go back to school in the off-season. I'm going to focus on finishing the season of football and then when that ends, I'm going to go back to Cambridge and go back to school for maybe a couple of months. 

Luke is already an accomplished athlete. He’s an eight-time national BMX champion and he’s competed around the world. He was seven when he went to his first world championships, and his best finish was second at the junior world championships in 2019 in Belgium. His father, Phil, was a British BMX champion in his youth, and Luke was on a bike around the same time as he started walking. 

Photo: Photomac / Luke Brooke-Smith (second from right) in his first start for the Wellington Phoenix - 28 December 2024 vs Newcastle Jets

Photo: Photomac

You got into BMX through your dad. How and when did you get into football? 

I was at daycare. I think I think I was three years old. One of my best friends, his mum was taking him and asked if I wanted to go. I think I cried on my first game. And then after three games I just enjoyed it. I actually started competing in football before I started competing in BMX. 

So both sports developed at the same time — rather than focusing on BMX and then moving to football?

Yeah, it was more like I started football in pre-school, but then as soon as I got to around six, BMX took over. That's when I went to my first nationals, and then it was like football was one of those things where I knew I was sort of good at it, but I didn't know how good compared to other people I was.

I was around ten and I went to a tournament in Auckland. I knew I'd done well. I was scoring goals and that's when I realised I wanted to keep doing those tournaments. Then I started taking football a bit more seriously and then I started playing with the Ricki Herbert Academy. I was about 11 or 12. 

I've always had it in my ear my whole life from my parents  – “you’re going to have to choose eventually”. And then when I was about 13, I think 2020, I was like, I'm going to give BMX like two more years — do World Champs in 2022 — and then give football a year and see how football develops. 

You moved from Whangarei to Cambridge when you were 11. One reason was because of a focus on going to the Olympics with BMX. So, did you go to the Olympics? 
The thing is, to go to Olympics for BMX, you have to be 18. I didn't move to Cambridge for just the Olympics. There's lots of different reasons, it was a mixture of BMX and football and then also for school.  Also, Cambridge was just a lot more central. In Whangarei, we were looking at a lot more travel; it’s just much further away.

 

Luke Brooke-Smith (left) with RH3 founder Ricki Herbert.

 

The Brooke-Smith family moved in Cambridge in 2019, when Luke was 11. He joined Cambridge FC, and continued to train with Ricki Herbert’s Football Academy, RH3. 

Herbert, an ex-All White, has a long coaching history, including coaching the All Whites from 2005-2013 and the Wellington Phoenix from 2007-2013. He is currently the Director of Football at Cambridge FC and Hamilton Wanderers. 

Herbert says Luke has a huge amount of resilience due in large part to his early BMX experiences — he’s been training, travelling, competing and, sometimes, getting injured since he was six. He’s dealt with concussion as well as multiple broken bones. 

Luke is a mature kid, says Herbert, both mentally and physically. He’s strong and is getting opportunities at a younger age than some of his peers. But Herbert says development is specific to the individual. He’s worked with players who have taken longer to physically mature; and go on to reach full strength in their early 20s. It’s a process that is different for everyone. 

He says Luke and his parents trusted the process.

“He was really focused on where he wanted to go and what he wanted to do. He was that real diligent, strong minded, very resilient kid, you know, super focused on what he wanted to achieve and how to get there,” Herbert says.

Luke made his senior debut at Cambridge soon after he turned 15, and Herbert says he blossomed and thrived in the environment with the senior players and really improved his game. 

Luke didn’t stay in the senior side at Cambridge long before he was ready for the next challenge, and transferred to Hamilton Wanderers, who played two tiers higher in the Northern League.

He played about 10 games in the Northern League before the chance arose for him to trial with the Phoenix.

Luke Brooke-Smith [Number 7] makes his senior debut for Cambridge against Papamoa / June 2023 / Photo: Cambridge FC

Luke has shared more about his Phoenix experiences and his 2025 goals:

What can you tell me about your time so far at the Phoenix and what you've learned? 
I’ve learned so much on the field, every training.  Like my training yesterday, I had probably the best training I've ever had. I think a lot of things I’m learning  is off the field stuff from players like David Ball, Scott Wootton, who has been in Premier League teams, and Marco Rojas and all those older boys that have achieved so much in their careers and you speak to them off the field and it’s so much the mental side when you get to the top level.
I can see it myself in the last three weeks, the amount I've been improving and playing and training is so much. 
I guess it’s been quicker improvement because of the confidence I've had, you know playing a couple games now and it's sort of flowing into the next, into every training. 
And they really help with what to do with the ups and downs, the off days and everything. 

Have you always played as a winger?
I was a winger, and then for about three years in Cambridge I played in the midfield. When I started playing senior football for [Hamilton] Wanderers last year and New Zealand [U-16s] they put me out on the wing.
Chiefy [Italiano] sort of doesn't like to have wingers or strikers; he calls us just attackers because he likes the players to be able to play anywhere. 

It sounds like it's a really supportive environment and everyone’s out to help you learn 
Yeah. I mean, all the players, they’ve all been there at 16,17,18,19 wanting to have the professional career. They all know what it's like and you know, had the hunger to be better. So, the more I speak to them, the more they help me out with tips, the stuff that they’ve learned across their journey. 

Tell me about your goals outside the Phoenix for 2025? 
The Under 17's World Cup is this year and there's also the Under 20s World Cup, which technically I'm eligible for. I would love to play in both if I could.

* Scholarship Players are players aged 16 — 23 who are paid at minimum wage. Their payments sit outside the A-League’s salary cap (except for any payments above the minimum). Up to 16 scholarship players are permitted at each A-League club.

** The Phoenix Academy are a 10-minute drive from NZCIS, at Fraser Park in Lower Hutt. 

This interview has been edited for clarity. 
 

Timeline:

13 August 2024 - Signs pro contract with Wellington Phoenix
22 Dec 2024 - Debut - Western Sydney Wanderers vs Wellington Phoenix 4-1 (75min substitute)
28 December 2024 - First start - Wellington Phoenix vs Newcastle Jets 2-1 
3 January 2025 - Start - Melbourne City vs Wellington Phoenix 2-1 
11 January 2025 - Wellington Phoenix vs Adelaide United 1-2 (81min substitute)
20 January 2025 - McArthur FC vs Wellington Phoenix 1-2 Unused substitute 
25 January 2025 - Wellington Phoenix vs Central Coast Mariners 0-0 Unused substitute

Article added: Tuesday 28 January 2025