Soccer’s Chatham Cup Holder Playing In Chch.

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31319, 15 March 1967, Page 15

Soccer’s Chatham Cup Holder Playing In Chch.

New Zealand’s number one soccer club in 1966, the Chatham Cup holder, Mirimar Rangers, has agreed to play in Christchurch on Sunday, April 2.

The Wellington club will be the first opponent for the new Christchurch United club, the combined team of the four senior sides Christchurch City, Rangers, Shamrock and Technical. The four clubs became associated at the end of last season in an attempt to form a united team to enter a national league. When it was later decided

to delay starting a national league until 1969 or 1970, the four clubs agreed to continue their association and to play friendly matches against leading dubs and representative teams from outside Canterbury. The match with Miramar Rangers, which last season completed the double of national Chatham Cup winner and Wellington inter-club champion, is the first of a series planned by the Christchurch United club committee. * Miramar won the 1966

Chatham Cup competition when it defeated the Christchurch club. Western, in the final at the Basin Reserve last September. The chairman of the Christchurch United club committee, Mr F. J. H. Haydon, said yesterday: “We completed arrangements with Miramar Rangers on Monday night and the Wellington club will include the majority of the team that won the Chatham Cup. “This is the kind of match the United club had hoped to give the Christchurch soccer public, week after week, in a national league. Now we hope this will be a taste of the things to come in the near future, when all soccer administrators will see the need for national league.” The Christchurch United team will be selected from players currently in the senior teams of the four parent clubs, and will be chosen by Mr Haydon and the Technical dub’s playerooach, J. C. Chalmers.