Upper Hutt City Football aims to be THE club of choice for girls’ and women’s football in the Hutt Valley, providing development opportunities for female players of all ages and stages.

We’re a large, community club with a committed senior management team striving to provide a quality football experience both on and off the field for female players. We’re also one of the few clubs with a dedicated medic for our women’s teams, with a big focus on player welfare.

Junior Girls

Girls only teams – In previous years, Upper Hutt City Football entered teams into the Capital Football Girls Only Sunday Leagues at U8, U10, U12 and U14. This allows our junior girls the option to play girls’ only, or to play both mixed (on Saturdays) and Girls’ Only on Sundays.

For 2023, if enough players are interested, we will again be looking to enter teams in these Girls’ Only Sunday leagues. Please contact Noel Raggett, our Junior Captain for more information about our Girls’ Only options.

Senior Women

In recent years, the UHCF women’s side has seen spectacular success:

• 2017 – W League champions, Kelly Cup winners, Kate Sheppard Cup semi-finalists
• 2018 – A thriving junior girls’ development programme, a senior women’s team playing at the top local level (featuring club players breaking into senior football through to NWL and internationals) and the ONLY club with a team in every round of the inaugural Girls’ U18s competition
• 2019 – Continuation of the junior girls’ development initiatives, U18s and strategic decision to withdraw from W League to focus on development. The club’s strong commitment led the new Division 3 team to double promotion and a final in the Executive Plate, and runners-up in the Girls U18s competition. 2019 also saw the award of funding from the FIFA Women’s World Cup Benefits Program recognizing UHCF’s role in developing the women’s game by having former club members playing for the NZ Football Ferns in the 2019 Women’s World Cup.
• 2020 – Double winners!! Our competitive women’s 1st team won Div 1, and in the fastest route possible earned promotion to the Premier League.  Our new social reserve team also earned promotion from Div 3 and kicked off the 2021 season as a competitively social division 2 reserves team (proudly sponsored by the Gunshop Upper Hutt).
• 2021 – Performing well in Capital Premier League, the 1st team finished in the top half of the competition and won the Women’s Premier Plate Final. Our reserves team earned promotion from Div 2 to Div 1 after the first round and finished the second round in the middle of the Div 1 table.
• 2022 – Another strong season for our 1st team! With a 2nd place finish in the Cap Prem competition, a win in the Kelly Cup Bowl final and making it to the Women’s Premier Cup final, the team managed extremely well, despite injuries and illness through the season. Additionally, this was the first year the club was able to offer both a competitive reserves team and a social team, showing the growing interest in the women’s game in the area with three senior women’s teams at the club.

In 2023, we will continue to support our junior development programmes, field at least two senior women’s teams (one in Prems, reserves in Division 2 and a social team in Div 3) and continue success in the girls’ U18s league. With our continued focus on female football development, the team will continue to support transition from youth to senior football, working closely with our U18s.

About our support and coaching team:

Katie Pettengell, Women’s Captain: Hailing from New Jersey, USA, Katie has played soccer since she was five years old, captaining her high school soccer team and then playing socially at Princeton University. She continued to play in Aberdeen, Scotland when her career took her there for 3 ½ years. On arrival in New Zealand in 2008, Katie played for Waikanae while living in Kapiti. She moved to the Hutt Valley a year later and played for Naenae Soccer Club for 10 seasons (only taking 2 short breaks to have children). With her two sons both playing for UHCF juniors from 2018, Katie decided to move to UHCF and welcomed the role of Women’s Captain without hesitation. Katie has been the driving force behind our women and girls with great success on and off the field.

Doug King, Women’s Medic: Clinical Nurse Specialist at Hutt Hospital and concussion specialist, Doug joined the women’s side in 2022 to support the team while furthering his extensive research on head injuries in women’s sports. He provides support across all of the women’s teams, giving guidance on injury prevention, recovery/rehabilitation, nutrition and other aspects of player health and welfare.

2023 coaching appointments are currently in progress. Come back soon or keep an eye on Facebook for more details.

It takes a community to grow our community and everyone within it, and we’d love your help!!

We’re keen to hear from anyone who can support female development from behind the scenes. From ensuring a quality game-day experience for our players, coaches and supporters, helping promote our women’s teams through our marketing channels or being a voice for the female players on our Executive Committee, if you have new ideas, energy and a willingness to contribute to growing our girls and women’s game, please do get in touch with Katie!