One Chinese char in UFT-8 encoding holds 3 bytes, and let's suppose that your string is encoded by 'UTF-8', and you've already set your page's encoding method is 'UTF-8', then the following lines will make it:
$match->homegroup = '丙組';
echo substr($match->homegroup, 0, 3); // works, will output '丙' , but not good
echo mb_substr($match->homegroup, 0, 3); // works, will output '丙' , but not good
echo mb_substr($match->homegroup, 0, 1, "UTF-8"); // works, will output '丙'
Just stop here, since it get the work done. And will be back soon!
REFs:
http://blog.xuite.net/chenbruse/bruse/13351768
http://blog.linym.net/archives/74