Waterside Karori was formed from the merger of two famous Wellington soccer clubs - Karori Swifts and Waterside.

Swifts
The Wellington Swifts were formed in 1894. They played in a maroon shirt and dark shorts. The Swifts football club were a nomadic bunch with no roots to any one district, wandering all over Wellington before moving to Karori in the 1950's. The Swifts were a successful club early on, winning the Venus Shield seven times before the First World War. This was the highest honour for Wellington teams prior to the Chatham Cup being established in 1923. The Wellington Swifts changed their name to Karori Swifts in the late 1960's, giving them an identity with the suburb. Benburn Park became the senior home ground and there were two junior sized grounds at Karori Park. The closeness to the Karori Cricket Club rooms and the fact that a group of soccer players also played as a cricket team for Karori Cricket, started an association. This was the build-up to a club that has become the suburbs' biggest sports body.

Waterside
Waterside were formed in 1921, and played in black and white stripes. They were one of the most famous football clubs in New Zealand during the late thirties and early forties, due to the success the club had winning the Chatham Cup four times. Watersides' early success was mainly due to the Port of Wellington employing many British workers, who were crazy about football. In 1951 disaster hit the club. There was a waterfront dispute which lasted 151 days and only five players returned from that industrially-ravaged season to play in 1952. It took around 9 years for the industrial problems to recede, and then Wharfies started to rebuild. In 1965, land was leased from the city council at Kaiwharawhara and clubrooms erected. The area was top-soiled, drainage laid and floodlighting installed, at considerable cost, to provide players with facilities approaching the best in Wellington at the time. In 1978 the club changed its name to Columbus Waterside in appreciation of the major sponsorship received from the Columbus Shipping Line.

The Merger
By the mid 1980's, Waterside was a wealthy club and was experiencing success in the top mens leagues. Karori Swifts strength was in its size. Karori had 10 men’s teams, 2 women’s teams and 40 junior teams, but it lacked success at the higher levels. A merger of the two clubs was seen to benefit Swifts by way of status and the sponsorship money, whilst Waterside would benefit from expanding its small player base. The merger took place in 1987, forming Waterside Karori AFC. The question of strip was easily decided. Waterside played in black and white, as did most other sports codes in Karori, so those colours became the new clubs strip. The first two years were rocky for the club. The first men’s team spent only two years in the National League, a few top players were lost, and so was the Columbus sponsorship. The newly founded club developed following the merger. Since that time Waterside Karori has maintained its high status, and continues to be the largest soccer club in Wellington. The club fiels 18 men’s teams, 2 women’s teams and 93 junior teams. The Club led the develompent of new services to footballers increasing performance and participation rates. The programmes include developing coaches, partnerships with local football clubs, systematic high performance player develompent and year-round football programmes.  2006 and early 2007 saw the redevelopment of Karori Park and a major effort to rebuild the clubrooms we share with Karori Cricket. The development included a cafe by design to welcome and serve visitors to the Club and park area. This project makes the park one of the premier grounds in Wellington.