The Ponsonby Football Club 1874-91


The Ponsonby Football Club, as it originally was, began in 1874 with little fanfare and no press notices of meetings to form it. Therefore we have no foundation date, only the year. However it is known Grafton played its first match a couple of weeks before Ponsonby, while North Shore played a year earlier.

Like the other new clubs in 1874 (Grafton, Mt Hobson and Parnell), Ponsonby suddenly appeared in the news as an already formed entity which was match-ready. Actually Ponsonby was one of the quickest to get up to speed, having a reasonable understanding of the rules from early on and some handy players. Soon it was the strongest club in town, and more than a match for any but the best.

The aim of this section is to collate all the references to Ponsonby's activities, and note the results, scorers and appearances for each match. Team lists have sometimes been difficult to obtain but a reference in the match reports obviously means a man played, and therefore can be credited with an appearance. Any anomalies are noted in the stats section. Some items of a general nature relating to Auckland football find their way into the list, but these contain material that affected what happened with Ponsonby. It can be truly said that the story of the early days of Auckland rugby and the Ponsonby club are so intertwined that, to a degree, they are inseparable.

Especially in the early days, football items tended to be tucked into columns containing all kinds of material. They're in there, but you might have to scroll down to find them. In the interim, all kinds of weird and wonderful news items will come up. Enjoy.

One of the good things about dealing with such a successful club is that, for much of its lifetime, it has played one of the main matches each week, and therefore got more extensive coverage and more players got mentioned. Ponsonby had, for years, reluctant secretaries who never posted team lists in the papers and in one case that may have prevented the man himself from being credited with all the appearances he made and thus becoming one of the club's recognised match centurions (I'm talking about Len Righton; eventually I found enough references to be sure he was our second centurion).

For each year, the Items are news stories with dates and modern commentary on them; the Stats are self explanatory; and where some player or event deserves extended notice that doesn't come under any other category you'll find on this site, a short feature article will be linked.