1912. The senior team were Champion of Champions in 1956 and 1957. Ngāruawāhia is the home of the rugby league team Turangawaewae RLC, which is named after the marae opposite the clubrooms. The club currently holds the record for the first team to win consecutive titles in the annual Waicoa Bay Premiers Competition, consisting of all teams in the Waikato, Coast and Bay Of Plenty regions. 'Ngaruawahia Rugby League Club' (Panthers) are 2011 champions, Premiers, U17, U14, U13 are all champions. River activities The local regatta has been a fundamental event for the region for well over a century. An event is held every year in March on the Waikato River. The first regatta was an unofficial event in 1892, involving both Māori and Pākehā festivities. The regatta provided a means of association between two ethnic groups, socially and culturally. The first official regatta took place in 1896 and since then has grown to become one of New Zealand's largest aquatic festivals. During the centennial regatta in March 1996, over 48,000 people visited the town to see thousands of performers from a number of countries. For many years, jumping off the rail bridge has been a tradition. However, organisations such as KiwiRail want the practice to end. Hopuhopu Hopuhopu is north of Ngāruawāhia. From 1853 Hopuhopu had a boys' mission school, which lost most of its pupils in 1862 and, by 1863, was reported as in disrepair. The mission house burnt down in 1886. An army camp was built on the mission site in the 1920s, including its own water supply, ammunition dumps and a railway siding. A 1925 photograph showed only one building and many tents, but a 1955 aerial photo showed the extent of building, which was largely complete by 1927. In 1993 the camp was returned to Waikato-Tainui, who converted it to their headquarters and Waikato-Tainui College for Research and Development. Education Ngaruawahia High School is the town's co-educational state secondary school, with a roll of as of . The town has two English-language state primary schools: Ngaruawahia School, with a roll of ; and Waipa School, with a roll of . St Paul's Catholic School is a co-educational state-integrated primary school, with a roll of . Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Bernard Fergusson is a co-educational Māori-language state primary school, with a roll of . Former residents Kelvin Cruickshank, television personality Martin Donnelly, cricketer Shaun Kenny-Dowall,