Wednesday, July 28th 1976
Ngaruawahia High School Defeat Te Kuiti
The Ngaruawahia 1st 11 High School soccer team continued its unbeaten run of games in the Waikato Secondary Schools competition with a hard fought away win over Te Kuiti. Having taken Te Kuiti 5-1 in the home game, Ngaruawahia was determined not to spend three hours travelling time on Saturday, without something to show for it.
For the first 50 minutes Ngaruawahia pressured the Te Kuiti goal, but near misses and some steady keeping kept the score at 0-0. Ngaruawahia keeper G. Prendergast had little to do but keep tabs on the game and supported his fullbacks in all situations.
The first netted ball came when P. Jerry received a pass from P. Van Houtte and wove through to score, but had it disallowed by the referee who ruled the initial pass offside. The travelling team were getting worried when three-quarters of the game passed with no score, although a tonne of territorial advantage was theirs. Then Alistair Bell clicked and fired home three well-hit goals in the last 15 minutes for the 3-0 win to Ngaruawahia.
2nd 11 win over Fairfield
Having taken Fairfield C soccer team 4-0 in the first encounter, 2nd 11 Ngaruawahia let them take the initiative with an early goal before G. Solomon, J. Gray, G. Cathro and A. Bell (2) sewed up the match for a 5-1 win away at Fairfield.