Gisborne Thistle AFC is an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

club based in the city of Gisborne, in the North Island of

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

. For many years, the club played second-fiddle to neighbours

Gisborne City Gisborne City AFC was an association football club in Gisborne, New Zealand. Founded in 1939 as Eastern Union, the club changed its name to Gisborne City after winning the Central Districts League at the first attempt in 1967. As Eastern Union, ...

(with whom they share the Childers Road Reserve ground). Their record includes appearances in the latter rounds of the

Chatham Cup The Chatham Cup is New Zealand's premier knockout tournament in men's association football. It is held annually, with the final contested in September. The current champions of the Chatham Cup are 2022 winners Auckland City, who defeated Eastern ...

on numerous occasions, their best performances coming in

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli intensity of X (''Extrem ...

and

1971 * The year 1971 had three partial solar eclipses ( February 25, July 22 and August 20) and two total lunar eclipses (February 10, and August 6). The world population increased by 2.1% this year, the highest increase in history. Events Ja ...

when they reached the fifth round. Thistle joined the

Central Federation League The Central Federation League is an amateur status league competition run by Central Football for association football clubs located in the central region of the North Island, New Zealand. It is currently in the third level of the New Zealand foo ...

in 2005, winning the competition that same season and reached the

Central League The or is one of the two professional baseball leagues that constitute Nippon Professional Baseball in Japan. The winner of the league championship plays against the winner of the Pacific League in the annual Japan Series. It currently consist ...

playoffs losing to

Stop Out Stop Out Sports Club, commonly known as Stop Out, is an association football club in Lower Hutt, New Zealand is based at Hutt Park, Moera in Lower Hutt. History The Stop Out organisation started in 1919 with the aim of providing recreation to T ...

. The decision to withdraw from the league was taken in order to consolidate the team and to explore the concept of merging with City to form a new amalgamated "Team Gisborne".

Chatham Cup

1929 This year marked the end of a period known in American history as the Roaring Twenties after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 ushered in a worldwide Great Depression. In the Americas, an agreement was brokered to end the Cristero War, a Catholic ...

Gisborne Thistle participated in the

competition for its first time.

Honours

1984

- Division Three North 2005

References

External links

Central Football Gisborne Thistle page
Association football clubs in New Zealand Gisborne, New Zealand Sport in the Gisborne District {{NewZealand-footyclub-stub