The first meeting of the current Takapuna Rugby Football Club was held on 21 March 1934, but there were earlier Takapuna rugby clubs.
The first team with the name 'Takapuna', or the 'Takapunas', began in early April 1889, as the third junior team of the North Shore Rugby Football Club. Selwyn Harold Speight (1912-1994), who collated the first volume of 'C'mon Shore; the first one hundred years of the North Shore Rugby Football Club' (1973), claims the 'Takapunas' were mainly from the Permanent Force members at Fort Takapuna. In the late nineteenth century, Takapuna was still a rural part of the North Shore and unlikely to provide sufficient players for a separate rugby club.
Ernest Leonard Eyre (1886-1968), who wrote the earlier part of 'C'mon Shore', referred to the Takapunas as a fourth-grade team with 25 members in 1892, including Wooller as captain. According to Eyre, they were attached to the North Shore club in at least 1895 and 1896 with both a 17-member senior and a 16-member junior team, playing only outside matches. He also described and named players in two photographs (one is featured in this column, likely the seniors).
On 29 June 1889, the Takapunas played a match against the Native Rose team, likely on the Devonport Domain. On that occasion a Takapunas player, R. Gibbs, broke his leg during play. In September 1896, and again in September 1897, there was a "costume" game between Takapuna and a team described as Māori from Orakei on the Devonport Domain. Photographs of both teams from the 1896 match are featured in the 'N.Z. Graphic' of 3 October 1896 (page 414).
After 1897, there is no more mention of the Takapuna'. Likely they would have worn the North Shore Club's dark blue jersey, with a woven diamond pattern on the front. This had an 'NS' in white on the horizontals and 'FC' on the verticals (note in the featured photograph the third player from the left, standing).
Takapuna Borough was formed on 1 July 1913 and in early May 1914, the first officially named Takapuna Rugby Club was formed. The local M.P. Alexander Harris became the patron, and a future Takapuna mayor, William Blomfield, the president.
That season, the team played in the fourth grade against North Shore (twice, with the second game lost 20 to nil), Marist Brothers, Newton, Parnell (lost 18 to nil), Grafton (lost 18 to nil), Ponsonby A (won by default), Ponsonby B, and City (twice, with the first game lost 6 to nil). Altogether, not a successful outing for Takapuna, and following the enlistment of 13 members of the senior team following the advent of war on 28 July 1914 that club appears to have ceased.
The 'Auckland Star' newspaper of 28 August 1923 (page 16) advertised a meeting to be held on 30 August in the Foresters' Hall in Takapuna to re-establish "the National [rugby] Game in Takapuna and District". Former players and enthusiasts were invited to attend, with Frederick Louis Trezise (1887-1964) and E. A. Wilson as convenors. The meeting supported entering second, third and fifth grade teams with the Auckland Rugby Football Union, and the affiliation was accepted on 19 September 1923. A builder and Earnoch Avenue resident, Trezise also played as an Auckland representative with the Auckland Rugby Football Union in 1910, 1912, 1913 and 1921, playing 15 games in total.
Although the new club couldn't join the rugby season until 1924, on 22 September 1923 Takapuna played the Auckland Harbour Board team. The first annual general meeting of the Takapuna Rugby Football Club was held on 4 March 1924, with Mannie Kronfeld presiding; the patron was the mayor of Takapuna, Arthur Mason Gould. The first practice was to be on Takapuna beach, but the club had also been granted a playing area in the Takapuna Borough Council's newly acquired Taharoto recreation ground. The club's immediate aim was to field at least four teams, but none figure in any 1924 newspaper reports.
At an 18 March 1925 meeting at the Anglican Parish Hall in Takapuna, members of the Takapuna club decided to instead join the North Shore Rugby Football Club.
In 1927 a new Takapuna club was formed.
