South Canterbury United was a football team from New Zealand. The team was initially formed in 1982 as a composite side containing players from Timaru City and Northern Hearts. Northern Hearts left the amalgamation in 1991, returning to their former name; Timaru City did the same in 1996. United continued as a separate side until 2008 before folding. They played in the Soccersouth Premier League, and played their home games at Sir Basil Arthur Park in Timaru.
Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played with a spherical ball between two teams of eleven players. It is played by 250 million players in over 200 countries and dependencies, making it the world's most popular sport. The game is played on a rectangular field called a pitch with a goal at each end. The object of the game is to score by moving the ball beyond the goal line into the opposing goal.
New Zealand is a sovereign island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. The country geographically comprises two main landmasses—the North Island, and the South Island —and around 600 smaller islands. New Zealand is situated some 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) east of Australia across the Tasman Sea and roughly 1,000 kilometres (600 mi) south of the Pacific island areas of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga. Because of its remoteness, it was one of the last lands to be settled by humans. During its long period of isolation, New Zealand developed a distinct biodiversity of animal, fungal, and plant life. The country's varied topography and its sharp mountain peaks, such as the Southern Alps, owe much to the tectonic uplift of land and volcanic eruptions. New Zealand's capital city is Wellington, while its most populous city is Auckland.
Timaru is a port city in the southern Canterbury region of New Zealand, located 157 kilometres (98 mi) southwest of Christchurch and about 196 kilometres (122 mi) northeast of Dunedin on the eastern Pacific coast of the South Island. The Timaru urban area is home to 29,100 people, and is the largest urban area in South Canterbury, and the second largest in the Canterbury Region overall, after Christchurch. The city is the seat of the Timaru District, which includes the surrounding rural area and the towns of Geraldine, Pleasant Point and Temuka, which combined has a total population of 47,300.
