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Thames Valley Rugby Football Union was formed in 1922. The large South Auckland Rugby Union, which covered the Goldfields, Waikato and King Country areas ran into difficulties in 1921 as constituent unions were seeking to break away and gain full union status from the New Zealand Rugby Union. Rugby in the Thames Valley Rugby Football Unions area has been linked to those romantic pioneering days of the timber and mining industries of the 1870s. The game was played in Coromandel and Thames from 1870 with Auckland players travelling to Thames to play games. As the timber and mining spread south from Thames to Paeroa and the farming activities came east from Hamilton so did the game spread into the Thames Valley.
The first clubs outside Thames were Katikati and Waihou, based at Waitoa, in 1880. On the Coromandel Peninsula clubs affiliated with Auckland were Mercury Bay, Whitianga, Tairua in 1888 and a year later came another four clubs, three of them in Coromandel. The first club in Te Aroha was in 1883, Paeroa in 1886 and Waihi in 1895. While Thames and Coromandel country unions remained with Auckland, the Paeroa, Waihi and Piako (in 1930 renamed Te Aroha) unions formed the Ohinemuri Union in 1899, which was the fore-runner of the Thames Valley Rugby Union as we know the union today. By 1904 these three unions were joined by Karangahake union to establish the Goldfields Rugby Union. The founding unions and clubs were Paeroa (West, East Suburbs), Waihi (City, West Suburbs, Katikati) Karangahake (City Suburbs, West End, Waitekauri, Waikino) Piako (Te Aroha, Waihou, Manuwaru). In 1909 the Goldfields joined Waikato (Hamilton, Cambridge, Waipa), and next Rotorua, King Country, Maniapoto and Opotiki to form the South Auckland union. The next season, 1911, Rotorua and Opotiki withdrew to form the Bay of Plenty union.
After the First World War (1914-1918) and rugby came out of recess the South Auckland union was in trouble with first the Waikato withdrawing in 1920 to form the Waikato union, and at the end of the next season the King Country union was formed. At the start of the 1922 season the Goldfields underwent a name change to Thames Valley Rugby Football Union. The four inaugural sub-unions were Paeroa (West, Hikutaia, Suburbs, Netherton, Komata), Waihi (Katikati, City, Mataura, Waitete), Te Aroha (Te Aroha Rovers, Te Aroha Rambles, Manuwaru, Waihou Rangers) and Hauraki Plains which was formed in 1920 (Turua, Waitakaruru, Ngatea, Kerepehi and Patetonga). For the 1935 and 1936 seasons the Thames union joined the Valley but then returned to Auckland. Thames along with the Coromandel union joined Thames Valley in 1951. The Katikati club was given dispensation by the Valley union to play in the Bay of Plenty in 1965 and the boundary was changed in 2001. There have been approaches to extend the union's boundaries into Morrinsville and Matamata but to no avail. The future of Thames Valley depends entirely on outside influences being generated by professionalism in rugby. |
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HistoryRoss Cooper
Roger Wilton
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