The Hamilton United Rugby Football Club was formed in 1957. It was formerly known as the Horsham Downs Rugby Club, in 1958 the club moved to new grounds at Rototuna. We changed in tents, washed off mud in an old bathtub and had “His” and “Hers”toilets in a corrugated iron long drop under the trees.

In 1959 we bought a transit building for £30.00 pounds which became our clubrooms. A big fundraising effort over three years enabled the club to build new clubrooms and purchase 5 ¼ acres at Rototuna. In 1964 we changed our name to what we are today.

We competed in the Waikato senior rugby competition from 1959 until 1993. During this time we produced one All Black being Aaron Hopa who’s picture appears on this page. Sadly Aaron passed away in a tragic diving accident in the prime of his All Black career. He is sadly missed by our club, the Taupiri Rugby Club, whom Aaron played 1st Division rugby for, and the Waikato Rugby Union.
Ex All Black manager Mike Banks also played fullback for our senior side.

In 1993, with the advent of “ professional rugby”, small rugby clubs could not compete with the bigger clubs so in 1991 the club ceased to have a senior team and the clubrooms at Rototuna were sold. The only team the club had left was a Presidents grade rugby team, which started in 1981.The team stayed together for two years without a home ground which showed great loyalty. In 1994 we moved to our present facilities at the Frankton Railways Sports Club in Frankton.

George Kimura, who represented Waikato Maori with distinction, formed the Yellowbellies in 1981 for past players who still wanted to play a more social game of rugby. After the first year George retired and the team was taken over by Frits Lang, who still organises and plays today. We decided that training was for the younger players, we were finely tuned athletes, we thought having a beer would cause less training injuries which meant we could play more rugby and, in turn get us out of mowing the lawns, not a bad plan.

In 1987 the club sent a team to the Golden Oldies Rugby tournament in Auckland, which was a fantastic experience, and from that date the club caught the travel bug and every two years we travelled overseas to places where rugby is played but is not a major sport. After digging swimming pools by hand, painting fences, stables etc, running Champagne breakfasts and lots of fund raising, the team attended the Golden Oldies tournament in Toronto, Canada in 1989.
As we were getting on in years we decided to fund raise the easy way. Money was borrowed and invested in sections on which two houses were built, the profit from which funded two trips.

We competed in the Golden Oldies tournament in Perth, 1991, which was the last organised Golden Oldies tournament we attended. After Perth we organised our own tournaments, touring the South Pacific in 1993, Cairns in 1995, Rarotonga in 1997, Mooloolaba in 1999 and Thailand in 2001.
We were represented by 3 players at the Brisbane Golden Oldies in 2003, in 2004 we returned to Thailand and continued on to Saigon in Vietnam. In 2005 we played at the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia. 2006 saw the Yellowbellies embark on a major tour to Hong Kong, Hanoi, Beijing and Shanghai. In 2007 we toured Adelaide and Tasmania and 2008 will see us in Norfolk Island. 2009 will be our most ambitious tour yet with Cairo, Athens, Prague and Rome possible venues for games.
We are the only Masters team in Hamilton and we travel extensively throughout the Waikato to play in tournaments as well as organising our own home games, we have made many new friends and we hope to be playing for a few more years.

We welcome all visiting teams from New Zealand and overseas and can assure them of great hospitality with several guitar players and any amount of singers after a beer or two. Accomodation is never a problem for visiting teams as we are more than happy to billet or arrange local accomodation. If you are planning a trip from overseas or intend coming to Hamilton for an end of season or pre-season game, feel free to contact any of the people below.