Caversham is an association football club based in

Dunedin Dunedin ( ; ) is the second-most populous city in the South Island of New Zealand (after Christchurch), and the principal city of the Otago region. Its name comes from ("fort of Edin"), the Scottish Gaelic name for Edinburgh, the capital of S ...

, New Zealand. They compete in the ODT FootballSouth Premier League. They are named for the suburb of Caversham to the southwest of Dunedin's city centre, best known for its former international sports venue

Carisbrook Carisbrook (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Carisbrook Stadium) was a major sporting venue in Dunedin, New Zealand. The city's main domestic and international rugby union venue, it was also used for other sports such as cricket, football, ...

. Caversham AFC, however, are based not there but at Tonga Park, located one kilometre to the south in the suburb of Forbury.

Club history

Caversham AFC was founded in 1931, and has been based at Tonga Park throughout its history. Caversham's premier team home strip is a white jersey with wide red band, white shorts, and red socks. The away strip is forest green shirt, greenish-white shorts, and forest green socks. Until 2009, their home strip was a red shirt with a broad horizontal black band edged in white, red shorts with a similar band across the left leg, and black socks. That kit is now used by the club's second XI. Caversham competed in the former

New Zealand national league The New Zealand Men's National League (NZNL), known as the Dettol Men's National League for sponsorship reasons, is an amateur men's football league at the top of the New Zealand football league system. Founded in 2021, the New Zealand Nationa ...

from 1971 to 1973 and from 1975 to 1977, competing in the first of those seasons as part of an amalgamated Dunedin Suburbs team. Their best performance came in

1976 Events January * January 2 – The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights enters into force. * January 5 – The Pol Pot regime proclaims a new constitution for Democratic Kampuchea. * January 18 – Full diplomatic ...

, when they finished third. They have reached the semi-finals of the

Chatham Cup The Chatham Cup is New Zealand's premier Single-elimination tournament, 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 Wellington Olymp ...

on six occasions (in

1970 Events January * January 1 – Unix time epoch reached at 00:00:00 UTC. * January 5 – The 7.1 1970 Tonghai earthquake, Tonghai earthquake shakes Tonghai County, Yunnan province, China, with a maximum Mercalli intensity scale, Mercalli ...

2006 2006 was designated as the International Year of Deserts and Desertification. Events January * January 1– 4 – Russia temporarily cuts shipment of natural gas to Ukraine during a price dispute. * January 12 – A stampede during t ...

2007 2007 was designated as the International Heliophysical Year and the International Polar Year. Events January * January 1 **Bulgaria and Romania 2007 enlargement of the European Union, join the European Union, while Slovenia joins the Eur ...

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

, and

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

), though they have yet to appear in a final. Caversham won 15 titles from 2000 to 2017. Caversham had a poor 2018 by their standards in the ODT Football South Premier League, finishing fourth after eight games.

Notable Former squad members

* ( GK)

Jason Batty Jason Alfred Batty (born 23 March 1971) is a New Zealand former professional footballer, who played as a goalkeeper, and is the current New Zealand National Team Assistant/Goalkeeping Coach. Batty frequently represented the New Zealand nationa ...

* ( FW)

Nathan McCullum Nathan Leslie McCullum (born 1 September 1980) is a New Zealand former international cricketer who represented the national team in One Day International and Twenty20 International cricket. A right-arm off-break bowler, he played domestically f ...

* ( DF) Alex McGregor * ( GK/ DF/ MF/ FW) Richard Murray * ( DF) Rupesh Puna * ( DF) Maurice Tillotson

Tonga Park

The club's home ground is Tonga Park. This lies immediately south of Caversham in the suburb of Forbury. Caversham's clubrooms are located on the west side of the ground, on Surrey Street (). The park is bounded on two sides by schools – the twin single-sex secondary schools of King's High School and Queen's High School, and the intermediate Bathgate School. Originally used for

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

and known by a variety of names, including Mammoth Park, The Stadium, and The Speedway, it was renamed Tonga Park (the

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

word for ''south'') after it was purchased by the

Dunedin City Council The Dunedin City Council () is the Local government in New Zealand, local government authority for Dunedin in New Zealand. It is a Territorial authorities of New Zealand, territorial authority elected to represent the people of Dunedin. Since O ...

in 1932.Goodall, M., and Griffiths, G. (1980) ''Maori Dunedin.'' Dunedin:Otago Heritage Books. p. 50. Cavvy-vs-Mosgiel

References

External links

Club websiteDunedin City Council's Tonga Park page
{{Soccersouth Premier League Association football clubs in Dunedin 1931 establishments in New Zealand 2020 disestablishments in New Zealand Caversham, New Zealand