1988 New Zealand National Soccer League

The 1988 New Zealand National Soccer League was the 19th season of a nationwide round-robin club competition in New Zealand football. Christchurch United finished as champions for the second season running, three points clear of traditional rivals Mount Wellington.

The last-placed team in the 1987 league would normally have been relegated, but Dunedin City withdrew citing the financial overheads of travel in the league, and so no team was relegated. City's place in the 1988 league was taken by Waikato United from the Northern league.

At the end of the 1988 season two teams were relegated: Manawatu United finished last, and Nelson United were expelled for failing to meet NZFA ground criteria.

The 1988 season came down to a two-horse race between traditional foes Christchurch United and Mount Wellington, neither of whom lost a match at home all season. At one point the gap between these first and third stretched to 17 points, though this was more than halved by the end of the campaign. Two players reached the milestone of 300 league appearances during the season. Papatoetoe's Keith Hobbs was first to the mark, followed on the last day of the season by Mount Wellington's Ron Armstrong, the last surviving player from the league's inaugural season.

Christchurch United were second in the table for much of the season, but eventually overhauled the Mount four weeks from the competition's conclusion. A good disciplinary record (with no red cards all season) and an undefeated run of 16 matches was almost enough for Mount Wellington to snatch the title, but even a league record-equalling 9–0 win over Manurewa was not enough to get them past the southerners.

If the seven-point gap between second and third was large, the gap back to fourth was even greater. Mount Maunganui was the only one of the league's remaining twelve sides to produce any challenge to the two leaders, and they finished in an isolated third place, 15 points clear of Napier City Rovers in fourth. An early run of losses was more than compensated for by a second half to the season which saw the Bay of Plenty side notch up 31 points in 13 games. They reduced the deficit on the top two, but the gap was far too great. Between them, the top three sides lost fewer games than any one of the league's remaining eleven teams.

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