Ngaruawahia United - 2006 Season To Present Day

2006 Season To Present Day

In 2006 former National League players Richard Harris and Gordon Glen Watson took over the coaching reins at the club and led the team to promotion from Northern League Division Two. The team went 20 league matches without defeat and finished runners-up to Papatoetoe AFC despite losing just one match all season and defeating Papatoetoe 3-1 at home and drawing 1-1 away in the final league game of the season.

Ngaruawahia United defeated Northern League First Division champions Onehunga Sports 2-1 in the Chatham Cup and enjoyed similar success against Northern League Second Division champions Papatoetoe. Ngaruawahia United finished runners-up to Onehunga-Mangere after suffering a 3-0 defeat at the Cambridge Pre-season Tournament. Earlier, Ngaruawahia United had beaten Waikato-rivals, Melville United, on penalties in an exciting encounter that finished 3-3 after Ngaruawahia had taken a 3-0 lead.

2007 proved to be a disappointing season for the club. Victory in the Cambridge Tournament Plate competition was the highlight as Ngaruawahia finished well down the Northern League 1st Division table. A new coach was added with former Waikato FC coach Dave Edmondson joining the team with an eye to taking over the job fulltime in 2008 with Richard Harris and Gordon Glen Watson both taking roles as squad players within the new set-up. Two derby defeats against local rivals Melville United (1-4 and 0-3) - including Melville clinching promotion on the last day of the season at Centennial Park.

Since then Dave Edmondson has taken Ngaruawahia United to the top of the restructured Northern League 1st Division winning thirteen matches and losing just three. Ngaruawahia United won the 2008 Cambridge Tournament but suffered a heavy defeat in the Chatham Cup losing 9-0 away at Glenfield Rovers. With just four matches remaining in the season the club is amongst the favourites to clinch a top two finish.

By the end of 2009 the Club had earned the right to play in the Premier League for 2010. However a major reshuffling of the competition with the re-entry of Northern Teams, and the loss of coach Dave Edmondson to the position of NZ U-19 Women's team, saw Ngaruawahia drop down to Northern league Division 2 for the 2011 season. They have appointed Phiilip Ruggles as player/coach.

In the penultimate game of the 2011 season Ngaruawahia defeated fellow promotion contenders Fencibles 2-0 to gain promotion along with Mt Albert Ponsonby to Division 1.

Over the 2011-12 off-season the club prepared a professional surface on their #1 pitch. This pitch, known as Templeton Field after their founder Joe Templeton, is now in use in the 2012 season.

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