Roslyn-Wakari Association Football Club 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

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; mi, Ōtepoti) is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from , the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland. Th ...

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 ...

. They compete in the

FootballSouth Premier League The Southern Football Premier League (known as the ODT Southern Men's Premier League for sponsorship reasons) is a New Zealand association football league competition administered bSouthern Footballinvolving clubs from the lower half of the Sout ...

History

The club's history began in 1888 when the Wakari Football Association first played in the local Dunedin league. This was only 44 years after the foundation of Dunedin, and the club is one of the oldest existing football clubs in the country (the oldest,

North Shore United North Shore United Association Football Club is an amateur football club based in the North Shore, Auckland. They compete in the Northern League, where they last won the competition in 2019. Their home ground is Allen Hill Stadium, which is l ...

, was founded in 1886). The Wakari AFC consisted of 14 members with 11 or 12 playing members. The first committee included Sir

Robert Stout Sir Robert Stout (28 September 1844 – 19 July 1930) was a New Zealand politician who was the 13th premier of New Zealand on two occasions in the late 19th century, and later Chief Justice of New Zealand. He was the only person to hold bot ...

(Premier of NZ 1884–1897) as its president. The club obtained a farmer's paddock and a ditch was dug as the perimeter for the pitch, outside the ditch the ball was out. In 1890 the Wakari AFC changed its name to Roslyn AFC. In 1895 the Roslyn AFC split into two clubs with the second becoming Wakari AFC. The next ten years saw friendly rivalry between the two clubs as they competed for the "Otago Banner". In 1904 the two clubs amalgamated to become Roslyn-Wakari AFC. The club went into recess from 1914 until 1929 when they re-entered the Otago Football Association competition. Roslyn-Wakari is one of Dunedin's stronger club sides. The team reached the semi-finals of the

Chatham Cup The Chatham Cup is New Zealand's premier Single-elimination tournament, 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 Auck ...

1968 The year was highlighted by protests and other unrests that occurred worldwide. Events January–February * January 5 – " Prague Spring": Alexander Dubček is chosen as leader of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. * Janu ...

and

1995 File:1995 Events Collage V2.png, From left, clockwise: O.J. Simpson is acquitted of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman from the year prior in "The Trial of the Century" in the United States; The Great Hanshin earthquake str ...

and the quarterfinals in 2006. Their senior men's team currently plays in the

Footballsouth Premier League The Southern Football Premier League (known as the ODT Southern Men's Premier League for sponsorship reasons) is a New Zealand association football league competition administered bSouthern Footballinvolving clubs from the lower half of the Sout ...

. The home ground for the club is Ellis Park in

Kaikorai Valley Kaikorai Valley is a long broad valley which runs through the west of the New Zealand city of Dunedin, to the west of the city centre. It is the valley of a small stream, the Kaikorai Stream, which runs from northeast to southwest down the ...

. Ellis Park was developed on an old tip site. In 1949 clubrooms were developed in the old stables which housed the horses which pulled the rubbish carts that filled in the grounds. Some of the wood used in modifying the old stables came from the demolition of an open-air swimming pool at the end of the top training ground in the Kaikorai Stream. The horse's head was adopted as the club's logo in recognition of this fact. These clubrooms were burnt down as a fire brigade exercise when the club built the present clubrooms/gym/changing rooms facilities in 1971.

Notable players and club members

(1844–1930), New Zealand politician * Howard Broad (born 1957), New Zealand commissioner of Police * Michael McGarry (born 1965), New Zealand footballer * Graham Marshall, New Zealand footballer *

Clare Taylor Clare Elizabeth Taylor (born 22 May 1965) is an English sportswoman, the first woman to have played on a World Cup team in both cricket and association football, football. She represented England at both cricket, as a member of the winning 199 ...

(born 1965), English sportswoman * Thomas Robins, New Zealand actor *

Kelly Brazier Kelly Brazier (born 28 October 1989) is a New Zealand rugby union and sevens player. She has played flyhalf, centre and fullback for the Black Ferns, New Zealand's women's national rugby team, and has competed at three Rugby World Cups in 20 ...

(born 1989), New Zealand rugby union player

References

UltimateNZSoccer website's Roslyn-Wakari page

External links

Roslyn Wakari AFC website
Association football clubs in Dunedin Association football clubs established in 1888 1888 establishments in New Zealand {{NewZealand-footyclub-stub