The Plimmerton Rugby Club has a rich grassroots history rooted in the Porirua region. While it originally operated as a standalone club for nearly three decades, its legacy lives on today as one half of the Paremata-Plimmerton Rugby Football Club (affectionately known as Pare-Plim).
The story of the original Plimmerton club spans a fascinating period of local history:
1. The Rough Beginnings (1930)
The Plimmerton Rugby Football Club was officially established in 1930. In the early days, the club lacked a formal playing field. To fix this, local players and supporters physically hacked out a playing surface from the Taupo Swamp, a site that eventually became what we know today as the Plimmerton Domain.
Because the Paremata Road Bridge wasn’t built until 1936, players from the Paremata side of the harbor had to travel by train just to get to the field for practices and games. The club’s original official jersey design featured grey with a royal blue stripe edged in yellow.
2. Early Triumphs and WWII (1931–1945)
Plimmerton quickly found its footing in the Wellington Rugby Union region.
• By 1931, they were runners-up to Hutt in the intermediate grade.
• In 1934, the Junior 2nd team took home the club’s very first championship, going completely undefeated with 11 wins and a draw.
Like many sporting clubs around New Zealand, operations were deeply impacted by World War II. Many players were called up for military service after 1939. Interestingly, when American Marines were stationed around Plimmerton and Motukaraka Point in 1942, they picked up a local understanding of rugby and even fielded a team against the New Zealand Navy in 1943.
3. A Friendly Neighborhood Rivalry (1945–1958)
As the war drew to a close in 1945, returning service personnel and residents in neighbouring Paremata decided to form their own separate club. They set up headquarters at the Ngāti Toa Domain, utilizing sections of a dismantled wartime Army camp.
For the next decade and a half, Plimmerton and Paremata shared a fierce but friendly local rivalry, regularly playing against each other in the Wellington lower grades.
However, running two separate clubs in such close proximity placed a massive strain on player numbers and resources. By the early 1950s, Plimmerton struggled to field teams, briefly requiring a special dispensation from the rugby union to play in plain black jerseys with white collars due to a shortage of resources.
4. The 1959 Merger: Birth of Pare-Plim
Realizing that they would be much stronger together, the two entities officially amalgamated in 1959 to form the Paremata-Plimmerton Rugby Football Club.
The newly merged club decided to establish its main headquarters at Paremata’s home ground, the Ngāti Toa Domain, where the club rooms still sit today.
The Legacy Today
Though the standalone Plimmerton RFC ceased to exist in 1959, its foundational history remains a proud pillar of the modern club. Pare-Plim has grown significantly over the decades, wearing its distinctive black, yellow, and red colors, and remains a competitive and vibrant hub for senior, junior, and women’s rugby within the Wellington Rugby Union.
An article detailing the history of the Plimmerton Rugby Club was written by Allan Dodson of the Plimmerton Residents Association which is attached below. click here to visit the Plimmerton Residents Association site.
The article is attached with Allan’s permission.
