Waterside Karori 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 in

Karori Karori is a suburb located at the western edge of the urban area of Wellington, New Zealand, 4 km from the city centre and is one of New Zealand's most populous suburbs, with a population of in History Origins The name ''Karori'' used ...

, a suburb of

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by me ...

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 currently play in the

Capital Football Capital Football is the trading name for the ACT Football Federation Incorporated, the state governing body for association football, soccer in the Australian Capital Territory, Australia, Australian Capital Territory (ACT), but also has affili ...

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 ...

History

Waterside Karori was formed in 1987 when Karori Swifts merged with Waterside. These two clubs had contrasting origins: Swifts were founded in 1894 from a Sunday School, and Waterside were founded in 1921 by dock workers. The current Waterside Karori club is still nicknamed

Wharfie A stevedore (), also called a longshoreman, a docker or a dockworker, is a waterfront manual laborer who is involved in loading and unloading ships, trucks, trains or airplanes. After the shipping container revolution of the 1960s, the number o ...

s. Waterside were originally based at

Kaiwharawhara Kaiwharawhara is an urban seaside suburb of Wellington in New Zealand's North Island. It is located north of the centre of the city on the western shore of Wellington Harbour, where the Kaiwharawhara Stream reaches the sea from its headwaters ...

at Wellington's waterfront, a location still used by Waterside Karori. Waterside was a successful club at a national level in New Zealand in the 1930s and 1940s, winning 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 ...

in 1938, 1939, 1940 and 1947. However, the club was damaged by the wider effects of the 1951 waterfront strike and took years to recover. Swifts were initially itinerant but settled in Karori in 1950, changing their name to Karori Swifts in the 1960s. At the time of the merger, Waterside had sponsorship and was playing in the National League, but had a relatively small player base. Swifts, on the other hand, had a large player base, both senior and junior, but lacked top-level success. The merged club adopted the Waterside strip of black and white vertical stripes with the maroon Swifts strip being retained as a second strip. In 2004 it became one of the founding principal clubs of the

Team Wellington Team Wellington Football Club was a New Zealand semi-professional football club based in the suburb of Miramar in Wellington, New Zealand. They competed in the ISPS Handa Premiership. Team Wellington had traditionally been one of the most succe ...

franchise in the

New Zealand Football Championship The New Zealand Football Championship ( mi, Te Whakataetae Whutupaoro a Aotearoa) was a men's association football league at the top of the New Zealand league system. Founded in 2004, the New Zealand Football Championship was the successor to a m ...

Honours

Men's

League

* Central First Division ::Champions: 1970, 1971, 1973, 1977 (as Waterside), 1987, 1988 (as Swifts) *

: 1938, 1939, 1940, 1947 (as Waterside)

Women's

League

* Women's First Division ::Champions: 2011

Cup

*Kelly Cup ::Champions: 1992, 1997, 2009, 2011

References

External links

Waterside Karori website
Sport in Wellington City Association football clubs in Wellington Association football clubs established in 1988 1988 establishments in New Zealand {{NewZealand-footyclub-stub