Archives

Joe Templeton Founder

The club is in the process of compiling an exhaustive record of its past. This compilation will include statistics, club newsletters, historic photos, team photos, match-day photos (28,000 already available), meetings minutes, media reports, match-day programmes and any other memorabilia that is pertinent to Ngaruawahia United. The Taupiri-based Cameron club and the Horotiu-based AFFCo Rangers club history is also being included. This will be a process that will take a period of time as data is continually sourced and uploaded. Information from Ngaruawahia High School, Cameron AFC and Affco Rangers FC is included due to their association with Ngaruawahia United. Material is also sought from the teams that played for the outlying mining settlements in the early 1900s.

Archive sources: The Huntly Press, The Waikato Times, The Otago Daily Times, The Sunday Star Times, Glen Gray, Ian Miller, John Bell, Sandy MacDonald, Ngaruawahia United, Huntly & Hamilton Libraries, Ngaruawahia High School, NZ Soccer Scoreboard website, Centre Spot and Green Machine Weekly Bulletins.

A Brief History

Ngaruawahia United was formed in 1968 by Ngaruawahia High School teacher Joe Templeton, mainly from players attending his High School. However, due to a lack of numbers, no competition was entered into until the 1969 season, when the team competed in the Waikato B Division.

Amalgamation with Northern League neighbours AFFCo Rangers in 1977 saw Ngaruawahia gain painless entry into the Northern League. Also in the same year the two-storied clubrooms were built, almost entirely by the club membership.

In the 1980s the club and council combined to prepare the “tomato patch” as another playing surface and, with the later hosting of Waikato FC over the 2008-2009 summer season, Ngaruawahia had the beginnings of a very good playing strip.

Ngaruawahia moved up and down the Northern League tables over the years from Div. 4 South to Premiers.

A club highlight was reached in 1998 when the senior team met Dunedin Technical in the Chatham Cup semi-finals (losing 0-2) in Dunedin.

2006 saw the establishment of the club website and the regular match-day programmes, published whenever the senior team has a home game. This became a full-coloured 20-24 page booklet in the 2009 season, strongly sponsored by the Ngaruawahia presence of Century 21 and then in 2010 by Print House of Hamilton.

In 2008 Centennial Park became the home ground of the WaikatoFC franchise. Improvements were made to the changing rooms, the pitch and the clubrooms. The field was fenced and seating was borrowed from the Hamilton car racing circuit. Many members of Ngaruawahia United were involved behind the scenes in support of the franchise.

2011 saw the appointment of Phillip Ruggles as senior coach along with a new committee to assist in the re-establishment of Ngaruawahia United as a local force in Waikato football. At the same time Sharp Copiers came to our aid in fully sponsoring a 20-page full-colour programme for the senior home games. The senior team came second in the Lotto Northern League Division 2 and were promoted to Division 1 for 2012.

At the end of the 2011 season the local council commenced an upgrade of the No.1 field, regrading it and installing an under-pitch automatic watering system. Approximately $130,000 has been invested in its upgrade.