Cambridge FC

Club history

The club was founded in 1948 and has played at John Kerkhof Park, Cambridge, New Zealand, since 1967. The teams play in red and white, a legacy of the club's first president Vic Butler's support of Arsenal F.C..

Playing record

The club achieved its first significant success at senior level, winning the Northern League’s 4th Division in 1979 and again in 1986. In 1989, it won the Northern League 3rd division title.

Cambridge reached new heights in 1993, winning the Northern League 2nd division.

After almost 40 years in the Northern League, Cambridge was relegated from the Lotto Sport Italia NRFL Division 2 in 2011 after finishing 12th and losing the challenger series playoff vs Manukau City AFC.

The club elected to drop two divisions into the Waikato Bay of Plenty Football Federation Division Two to rebuild under coach Karl Dagnall and won promotion in 2012 to Waikato Bay of Plenty Football Federation Division One.

In 2013, the club's C team won the Soccer Shop Waikato Plate.

In 2014, the club finished runners-up in Waikato Bay of Plenty Football Federation Division One and won the WaiBOP Federation Challenge Shield.

The club's women's first team won the 2014 Waikato Cup while the Youth Team won the U15 WaiBOP Federation Title.

In 2015, the club won the WaiBOP Premiership and qualified for play-offs to win promotion to the Lotto Sport Italia NRFL Division 2 but lost the two-match series to Auckland champions Waitemata FC. The club's youth team won the 2015 WaiBOP Federation Title.

In November 2016, the club announced it had appointed its coaching team for the WaiBOP Premiership squad, consisting of Mike Woodlock (coach), Steve Thomas (assistant coach), Kim Brierley (goalkeeper coach) and Carrie Donald (team manager).

The club were runners-up in the 2016 WaiBOP Premiership.

Current squad

Note: Flags indicate national team as defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

Captain Patrick Woodlock was named the WaiBOP Premiership's Player of the Year for 2015 and won the club's Jim Barry Player of the Year trophy for the fifth time in 2016, setting a new club record.

Coaching

In September 2016, former All Whites player and coach Ricki Herbert was appointed Technical Director for the club, a role to begin in early 2017.

Regional and national participation

Every February since 2011, the club has staged the Cambridge Sevens which are one-day tournaments for men's and women's teams drawn from the upper North Island of New Zealand.

In 2013, the club hosted premium events such as the Soccer Shop Waikato Cup Final, the Waikato v Bay of Plenty All Stars game, and the WaiBOP Women's All Stars v WaiBOP National League side.

After successfully hosting these games, the club was appointed as the home ground for five ASB Premiership matches for new franchise WaiBOP United. This meant Cambridge became one of six bases for national league football in New Zealand (the others are Auckland, Napier, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin).

The appointment led to the club becoming an all-year operation, with investment in better facilities including upgraded playing surfaces, new changing rooms (scheduled for early-2015) and a new irrigation system. In late 2014, WaiBOP United announced Cambridge would continue to be the team's home base with five more ASB Premiership matches played in early 2015. For the 2015–16 season, WaiBOP United announced they were moving their home games from Cambridge's John Kerkhof Park to Waikato Stadium to enable a television deal to cover ASB Premiership games.

In 2016, the club's John Kerkhof Park became the training base and home ground for the WaiBOP team in New Zealand's National Women's League.

The club staged its first international match on 25 May 2015 when Hungary and Fiji met in a warm-up match for the 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup being held in New Zealand.

The club hosted the 2016 finals of the Soccer Shop Waikato Cup and Plate.

Achievements

The club's first significant off-field achievement was winning Waipa District's Sports Club of the Year award in 2001, an award it won again in 2014 and 2015.

The club's success at hosting regional and national matches led to it winning the Supreme Award at the 2014 Trustpower Waipa District Community Awards, and the club represented Waipa at the national community awards in Wellington in March 2015.

The club had previously won the Trustpower Waipa District Community Awards (Sports) award in 2010. The club won another award for community service in December 2016, the Waikato Community Partnership Award, for its work with those ordered by the courts to perform community work.

In June 2014, the club was named Club of the Year for the Waikato/Bay of Plenty, winning WaiBOP Football's Colin Bell/Ron White Memorial Trophy.

In November 2014, the club was named Sports Club of the Year at the Waipa Networks District Sports Awards and in January 2015 was a finalist for the Waikato Sports Club of the Year. Former club chairman Greg Zeuren was named Sports Administrator of the Year at the Waipa awards and won the Waikato Sports Administrator of the Year title in 2015.

In 2014, the club won two WaiBOP Football Best Practice Awards, for its sponsorship practices and for the participation of women in the club.

The club won the New Zealand Match Programme of the Year Award for 2011, and the publication was highly commended in the awards for 2012 and 2013.

In August 2015, the club was awarded New Zealand Football's Quality Club Mark (QCM), Level 1 Star, which is a quality assurance standard used to measure the proficiency of clubs. Cambridge became one of the first clubs in the Waikato/Bay of Plenty region to attain the QCM.

In November 2015, the club won the Waipa Sports Club of the Year award for the second year in a row.

International players

Probably the club's best known past player is New Zealand international striker Chris Wood who joined English Championship club Leeds United in July 2015 from Leicester City.

Two New Zealand international women's players, Maria Anderton and Andrea Rogers played for the club with Anderton receiving a Special Achievement Award when retiring from competitive football in 2014 after more than 800 matches.

Player/coach Robbie Greenhalgh is a former New Zealand Under 17 player, while one of the club's former junior players, Jamie Woodlock, represented New Zealand at the Oceania Under 17 Championships in January 2015.

Midfielder Logan Wisnewski was called into the New Zealand Under 17 training squad in mid-2016.