David John Bright (born 29 November 1949) is a former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who represented

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

gaining 8 A-international caps from 1979 to 1982. Born in England, Bright emigrated to New Zealand in 1974 and made his first appearance for the All Whites in 1979 in a friendly match against

Norwich City Norwich City Football Club is a professional football club based in Norwich, Norfolk, England. The club competes in the Championship, the second tier of English football. The club was founded in 1902. Since 1935, Norwich have played their h ...

and his first official match on 29 June 1979 in a 6–0 win over

Fiji Fiji, officially the Republic of Fiji, is an island country in Melanesia, part of Oceania in the South Pacific Ocean. It lies about north-northeast of New Zealand. Fiji consists of an archipelago of more than 330 islands—of which about ...

. He was a member of the All Whites squad at the

1982 FIFA World Cup The 1982 FIFA World Cup was the 12th FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial Association football, football tournament for men's senior national teams, and was played in Spain from 13 June to 11 July 1982. The tournament was won by Italy national footbal ...

in Spain, where they lost to

Scotland Scotland is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It contains nearly one-third of the United Kingdom's land area, consisting of the northern part of the island of Great Britain and more than 790 adjac ...

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

and

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

. Bright retired from international football after the World Cup, and returned to New Zealand to continue to play in the

National League National League often refers to: *National League (baseball), one of the two baseball leagues constituting Major League Baseball in the United States and Canada *National League (division), the fifth division of the English football (soccer) system ...

for Manurewa and, later, Papatoetoe, before turning his hand to coaching. His son Kris Bright also represented New Zealand at the international level.

References

External links

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NZ 1982 World Cup
{{DEFAULTSORT:Bright, Dave 1949 births Living people 1982 FIFA World Cup players English men's footballers English emigrants to New Zealand Men's association football defenders Naturalised citizens of New Zealand New Zealand men's association footballers New Zealand men's international footballers Manurewa AFC players Papatoetoe AFC players Sittingbourne F.C. players New Zealand expatriate sportspeople in England Footballers from Maidstone Footballers from Kent 20th-century New Zealand sportsmen