Winning ways at Cambridge

Cambridge Football Club victorious last year

Cambridge, off to a sound start in the Northern League football championship, will look for a second successive win when it hosts Ōtorohanga in the top Waikato club league on Saturday

The league, an amalgam of last year’s Southern Conference championship and Waikato first division, threw up a couple of surprises last weekend.

Among them, for at least one coach, was news that the competition allows rolling substitutions in a game  – enabling players to come off and go back on again.

Claudelands Rovers have two teams in the league – Wallys and Squatters – and they accounted for seasoned southern conference campaigners Te Awamutu and Ōtorohanga on foreign soil last weekend.

Te Awamutu has dropped down from the Southern Conference premier league while Otorohanga won the championship last season.

The championship was abandoned for 2025 because of club withdrawals – including that of Otorohanga which could not meet football league requirements.

Cambridge is buoyant in both men’s and women’s competitions. Its top women teams has opened with two narrow losses on its Northern League championship campaign debt  and its WaiBop team beat Tauranga Moana 5-3 last weekend.

 Cambridge Football Club.  Photo: Mary Anne Gill.

More Recent Sports

Hear, hear… Kerin’s coming

Kerin Buttimore is a regular competitor at the Waipā Fun Run in Cambridge, and Sunday marked his first as an 80‑year‑old in a field of more than 700. “I wondered where all the fitness has…

Run for the fun of it

Cambridge Lifeskills will again benefit from St Peter’s Catholic School’s Waipā Fun Run and organisers are expecting record entries. Last year a record 691 runners took part in the event starting at Victoria Square. “Current…

Rugby’s new alumni club

Former King Country coach and 2026 Hautapu head coach Isaac Boss is one of many rugby lovers across the Waipā and King Country to be excited by the new Ruakura Rugby Football Club. Ruakura RFC…

Cricket honours go to Wolland

Hugh Wolland couldn’t have asked for a better start to his 2026 cricket season last Saturday as his Cambridge High School team took on Hamilton Boys’ High School’s U19 Senior Gold at home. The year…