New Plymouth Rangers is an amateur association Football club based in New Plymouth, New Zealand. They were founded as New Plymouth Old Boys in 1940, and have had a complex naming history. The team play at Merrilands Domain. The club has men's and women's senior and social teams, as well as over a dozen junior teams.
History
The club was formed at Western Park to allow former New Plymouth high school pupils to continue playing football after leaving school. An upsurge in immigrants to Taranaki after World War Two saw the club's membership increase, and it became, along with rivals Moturoa AFC, one of the region's strongest clubs. The team entered the Central League in 1969, but withdrew in the early 1970s. In 1974 the team amalgamated with Central City AFC, and re-entered the league under the temporary new name of New Plymouth City. From 1976 the club's senior team served as a feeder team to Taranaki United, a composite side formed by eight clubs from around the New Plymouth area. In 1982 New Plymouth Old Boys took over Taranaki United, buying it as a limited company. Taranaki United ceased to exist from 1984. NPOB re-joined the Central League in 1985 and soon became one of its top sides. They narrowly missed out on promotion to the New Zealand National Soccer League in 1988, but achieved this feat the following year. NPOB competed in the national league until its discontinuation in 1992, but were usually found near the bottom of the league table – their best end-of-season position was 13th out of 14 teams in both 1990 and 1991; if the league had not been disbanded after the 1992 season they would have been relegated, as they finished last. During this time the club played at Pukekura Park. In 1993, Old Boys merged with New Plymouth United to become New Plymouth Rangers, though until the end of the 1995 season the two sides continued to keep separate senior teams. During this time Old Boys competed in the Central Division of the Superclub competition, though they did not gain promotion to the nationalsection of the competition. The team was by now playing at Merrilands Domain. At the end of the 1996 season, the club withdrew from the Central League. New Plymouth Old Boys had a proud Chatham Cup. The club reached the later stages of the competition as Taranaki regional champions in 1951 and 1955, and also reached the Quarter-finals of the cup in 1988 and 1989. These feats have not yet been equalled by the club under its new name, though Rangers did reach the Fifth Round in the 1995 competition.
