Just looked it up, impressive football history. Any clubs top it?

http://www.hakoah.com.au/content_common/pg-hakoahsydneycity.seo

Hakoah - Sydney City Soccer Milestones

1939-1953 - In January 1939 a small group of Jewish emigres, who had been kicking a ball at Rushcutters Bay each Sunday, met to discuss the formation of a soccer team. That meeting resulted in the birth of Sydney Hakoah Football Club. It was not until 1954 that Hakoah started to make its presence felt and was admitted to the Southern League, the State's division, together with Sydney Austral of Dutch origin and Prague which comprised mainly Czech migrants. The team played in distinctive blue and white striped shirts with Magen David badge which was to become famous as the colours and emblem of Australia's greatest club.

1954/55 - Signing of former English first division professional Bill Walsh, centre half of Sunderland, and Australia's internationals Clem Higgins and Bill Murphy.

Achievements: Second in the League and Grand Final participant.

1956/57 - Admitted to the newly-created first division of the New South Wales Soccer Federation following the breakaway ny a number of clubs from the FIFA associated Soccer Association.

Made the first appointment in Australia of a full-time coah and secretary/manager, the former England international Jack Gibbons who was previously coach of Israel's international soccer team.

Achievements: Won the Kennard Cup.

Signed former Scottish international Jack Adair and ex-Hungarian first division striker Jules Forgacs plus former Crystal Palace forward Frank Hearn.

Achievements: Ampol Cup Finalist

1958/1959 - Signing of former Austria first division players Kurt Speigel, Willi Wesely and Peter Hrncir.

Achievements: Fourth in League and Winner of Federation Cup Final.

1960 - Fourth in League - a poor season despite the addition of brilliant Australian International Ray "Whoopy" Neal.

1961 - Star of the "Golden Years" following the Club's move to Wentworth Park and importation of Israeli internationals Raffi Levy and Gerry Chaldi plus six Austrian first division players, including the illustrious Karl Jaros. Over 96,000 fans watched the team's league games.

Achievements: Finalist in Ampol cup, Winner Federation Cup and Winner of League Grand Final with a 4-1 score line in front of 18,432 spectators.

1962 - Achievements: Second in League, Ampol Cup quarter-finalist and Grand Final Winner beating Budapest-St George 4-2 (including a hat-trick by the prolific Herbert Ninaus) in front of 26,770 spectators.

1963 - Signed Israel's player of the year "Danny Boy" Shmulevich and former English first division player Matt Woods from Blackburn Rovers. Signed former English great Len Quested and 20 goals scored by Ninaus in 21 matches.

Achievements: Won the Federation Cup deafeating South Coust United 2-1 in the final with the first goal scored by Bernie Gold. Local Juniors Peter Fuzes and Robert Fekete selected in New South Wales under 18 squad.

1964 - Newly signed stars included Welsh International Trevor Edwards and Leo Baumgartner, arguably the best Austrian player ever seen in Sydney Soccer.

Achievement: Federation Cup quarter-finalist.

1965 - Played visiting Israeli team Hapoel Tel Aviv, winning 7-1. The Club's coach Tiko Jelisavcic was chosen as Australian coach of the first ever Australian World cup Team. The team included such illustrious names as former England International winger Doug Holden and Alan Marnoch.

Achievement: Ampol Cup Semi-finalist, won Federation cup 3-1 against Pan Hellenic and Australia Cup 2-1 against Apia.

1966 - Winner of the League Grand Final, Ampol Cup finalist, Federation Cup semi finalist and Australia Cup finalist, all matches being played versus Apia. Winner Federation Cup championship shield. Greater emphasis on local players including international Ray Baartz. Peter Fuzes chosen for New South Wales state team.

1968 - The year of Hakoah's greatest achievements, under new coach Doug Holden, winner of:
1.
League premiership

2.
League grand final beating Pan Hellenic in front of 22,000 fans

3.
Australia Cup (virtually the National Championship) beating Melbourne Hakoah over two legs 3-0 and 3-1.

4.
Ampol Cup beating Melbourne Croatia 3-2.


1969 - Third in league and Ampol Cup finalist.

1970 - League premier and Ampol Cup Finalist

1971 - Manager Tibor Kalman who changed the style of play by importing 5 Brazilians including the brilliant Agenor Muniz and Hilton Silva and signing the great Aussie Striker John Watkiss. Former President Karl Rodny appointed Manager New South Wales Soccer team.

Achievement: Won League premiership and New South Wales state cups. Nominated best Club team in Australia, beat the Queensland State team 6-0 in Brisbane.

1972 - A disappointing season. The team started with former Celtic and Leeds International Bobbie Collins as coach and finished with a new coach in Wolverhamptons goalie David MacLaren who later became manager of the Social Club.

Fourth in League.

1973 - League premier and grand finalist Ampol Cup Winner.

1974 - League premier and grand finalist Ampol Cup Winner.

1975 - The year was marked by the untimely death at the age of 46 of Manager Tibor Kalman who had lead the team to 4 premiership wins in 5 seasons.

Fifth in League.

1976 - Players who were to form the nucleus of the club's final years included such stalwarts as Murray Barnes, Todd Clarke, Agenor Muniz, Steve O'Connor, Alex Robertson, Terry Smith, Hilton Silva and Joe Watson.

Gerry Chaldi became the team's coach.

Third in League, Winner of Ampol Cup.

1977 - Name changed to Eastern Suburbs Hakoah. Winner of first National League known as the Philips Soccer League (PSL).

Major addition to playing staff in former Aberdeen star Eddie Thomson later to become the Club's coach and coach of Australia's national team.

1978 - Name changed to Sydney City, home ground moved to ES Marks Field. Winner of PSL championship. The Club's coach Gerry Chaldi named "Coach of the Year".

1979 - Ampol Cup winner, Philips top four champion.

Eddie Thomson becomes coach and together with manager Andrew Lederer leads Club through its final years as Australia's most successful and best club team.

1980 - Winner of National Soccer League (NSL), Grand Final runner-up.

The team includes future International Jimmy Patikas, striker Ken Boden and Australia's most successful goal scorer John Kosmina.

1981 - PSL champion for the third time in a row and top four champion for the third time in four years.

1982 - Signing of Australian International striker David Mitchell.

Winner of NSL for 3rd year in a row - by a record 9 points.

1983- Runner-up in League to St George-Budapest.

1984 - League split into two parts with the Sydney City winning premiership of the "Australian Conference".

Grand Finalist losing to Sydney Olympic by 2-1 after extra time.

1985 - League again renamed as Northern & Southern Divisions. Winner of Northern Division. Signing of Frank Farina, later to make his name in Australia's national team and with European first division clubs in Belgium and Italy.

1986 - Fifth in the League and winner of Nanda Cup in the Club's last full season.

1987 - Sydney City plays its last match and withdraws from NSL on 30 March.

It is either Marconi or South Melbourne.

The above stats look mighty impressive...

The above stats look mighty impressive...

sorry, double post

Edited by thupercoach: 19/4/2012 05:56:57 PM

Yeah, they won several minor competitions here and there, good stuff. Marconi and South Melbourne have been national champions 4 times each, and for that reason alone, they should be the most successful Australian soccer clubs.

Club Champ Runner Up Years

Sydney City 4 times 3 times 1977, 1980, 1981, 1982


Marconi Stallions 4 times 3 times 1979, 1988, 1989, 1992–93


South Melbourne FC 4 times 2 times 1984, 1990–91, 1997–98, 1998–99

3 great clubs, South Melbourne comes third to Sydney City and Marconi. Stats don't lie. Noone's counting the "minor competitions here and there". Learn your history son before arguing with the big boys.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Soccer_League




Edited by thupercoach: 19/4/2012 08:25:31 PM

Calling for opinions before shutting any suggestions down.

Crap topic.

Didn't shut any suggestions down, just pointed out T-Unit's historical inaccuracies with facts. If anyone can mount a better argument, and one or two clubs can, I welcome it. I think it's important to respect and acknowledge football history in this country, not only did the game not begin in 2005 but it also did not begin in 1990.

As I said, all suggestions/ arguments welcome, but they have to based in facts.

Perth Glory.

Sydney FC. Suck it cunts.

South Melb won Oceania Club of the Century

Melbourne Victory

According to stats of the old NSL considering time in the competion the Melb Croatia/Knights team has the most impressive resume when it comes to the old national comp check the stats and prove me wrong? came into the comp in 1984 winning 2 titles back to back 3 or 4 loseing grand finals minor premierships plus national cup wins etc etc!!check and you shall see?

Sydney City were always a joke.

Would try to buy the league every year, had about 20 fans and no interest.

Even funnier were Lowy walked in the 80s and they foled.

Edited by ralerasic: 20/4/2012 05:02:18 PM

South Melbourne is Oceanic team of the century, to logically South Melbourne would be Australia's best club?

Correct.
Statistics are here

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IFFHS_continental_Clubs_of_the_20th_Century#Oceania

Agreed. SM win on points due to doing so well in the CWC.

But whoever said that SC tried to buy a prem every year is being particularly naive or one-eyed - the likes of SM, Marconi, Olympic and Perth were signing players galore year after year. Having watched most of the NSL I remember it well.

so going by all that the knights win hands down because we never went chaseing after any players!!lol

We should run a poll.

By that logic you guys should! :) I don't remember you guys or indeed Sydney United buying too many players.

pretty much we grew them from within and intern gave guys that no other club wanted a go and still played well!!lol=d>

This

http://iffhs.de/?0cf3370ff73117fe2c0bf23c17e23a09e33b17f7370eff3702bb1c2bbb6e20f92300f7371e

more than happy to accept the ruling for SM as the best NSL club ever. I wonder though how things compare pre-1977?

As we would need to draw a line somewhere I am happy to declare SM the winner. And a great club it is too, steeped in history. But if that line were to be drawn in 1930, I wonder...? Any historians out there willing to do a study?

I reckon most of the states were so dramatically changed by the post-war migrant soccer boom that comparison is almost impossible both within states and between states. Likewise, the onset of the NSL saw a lot of the stronger clubs leave those comps - and by necessity rendering a state championship thereafter a lesser achievement.

For example, from 1963-76, Hellas and Juventus won all but two state league titles in South Australia. In Victoria, Hellas and JUST shared 11 titles from 1962-76. It's also complicated by how much value you put on the Australia Cup, played from 1962-68. George Cross were Victorian runners up about 8 times in the pre-NSl era, only becoming champions in 1977, and yet have one of an Australian Cup to their name.

I think the "historian's exercise" of comparing state league clubs in the post-migrant boom era is so hard I don;t know if anyone would even bother contemplating it. Is the Hellas of South Australia that won half the titles over 13 years in the 60s/70s comparable to the top clubs of the stronger Victorian and NSW leagues?? I guess it's academic, and all deserve respect. Probably the best comparison is to be made once the national competition was formed, and going by that reckoning it's South Melbourne then Sydney City then Marconi that are the top 3. Please note I was not talking about the "best team", that's an entirely different conversation.

From a personal viewpoint, it's sad the Sydney City left the NSL in 2987, and I can't help but wonder how successful they could've been in the NSL had they hung around another decade - put it this way, on a titles per NSL seasons played they win by miles.

Overall I am happy to declare South Melbourne the winner. I also look forward to putting this against the HAL over the next decade or so once the new competition matures and more of a track record and pattern develops.

In the National Soccer League for the 10 seasons spanning 1989 - 1998 the Melbourne Knights was the number one ranked side:
Position    Club    Points
1    Melbourne Knights    499
2    Adelaide City    498
3    South Melbourne    495
4    Marconi Fairfield    491
5    Sydney United    442
6    Sydney Olympic    418

NSL Finals games only

Games: 10
Knights wins: 5
South wins: 4
Draws: 1

All-time national league table

Melbourne Knights is ranked 5th out of 46 clubs that have competed in the national competition (NSL and A-League):
   Played    Wins    Draws    Losses    Points    Pts per match    %Win
South Melbourne    792    381    178    233    1321    1.67    48.11%
Marconi Fairfield    788    362    180    246    1266    1.61    45.94%
Sydney Olympic     770    326    190    253    1168    1.517    42.34%
Adelaide City     770    324    193    253    1165    1.513    42.08%
Melbourne Knights    581    252    126    203    882    1.518    43.37%
Sydney United     577    242    142    193    868    1.50    41.94%

Read and weep as you can see Melb Knights are 5th on all time NSL list and Syd UTD 6th not bad for 2 teams that came in 8 years after NSL started.

Of course I'm showing my bias but South has to be declared Australia's most successful club. 4 national titles, 2 national cups, 8 state league titles, Oceania team of the century award and countless minor cups(Docherty, Ampol, Buffalo cup etc). We've averaged around 1 championship in the highest competition available to us every 4 and a bit years we've been around(53).
Knights and Syd Utd should be proud of themselves for their records as they constantly punched above their weight. Super record in pumping out all those Socceroos. Better than anyone for sure.
But on facts and figures alone and not percentages South is the winner i reckon.

As I said above, I have my own bias, but I am happy to name SM the best NSL club, with Sydney City a close second. I ask the theoretical question how well SC would've done had they hing around another decade. But then how well would've MK done if they had come in a decade earlier? It's all academic of course.

On another site (the old TWGF) we went through an exercise of going through the "best of" of each of the NSL clubs, and came up with some pretty impressive lineups.

I put forward my best Sydney City side:

..............Clarke
Hooker...Robertson...O'Connor...De Marigny
.......Barnes.....Cant
Watson....................Patikas
......Mitchell......Kosmina

Subs: Pezzano, Gomez, Boden, Farina

I reckon my best ever South team would wipe the floor with that Syd City team!!!!!

Petkovic

Davidson Durakovic Blair Postecoglou

Tassios Wade Crino Boutsianis

Trimboli Brown

Subs: McLaren, Kisnorbo, Muskat, Petersen, Bozinovski, Ollerton, Yzendoorn, Lozanovski, Egan........I could go on forever

Coach: Ferenc Puskas

Fuck we had some great players.

Edited by smfc and proud: 25/4/2012 09:48:16 PM

Yeah but we would've kicked you off the park ... :lol:

Mishka, wonder what our friend ECP would have to say about that :lol:

this team would thump all, my all time best melb knights team!!
goals- yakka banovic
defenders- fausto de amichi,george hannah,ante kovacevic,steve horvat
midfield- ljubo lapsanski,tommy cummings capt,joe simunic,andrew marth
forwards- mark viduka,zejlko adzic
bench- frank juric,kresimir marasic,kenny murphy,robbie dunne,billy vojtek,josip biskic

now now guys in the know who recall some of these players will know this starting 11 very hard to top!!lol=; \:d/

and i could of included, sasho ogdanovski,vargas,leijer,duganzic,franjic,vaughn coveny etc etc all household names all were at melb knights.




Edited by cro69: 27/4/2012 11:58:09 PM

Edited by cro69: 28/4/2012 12:05:20 AM

Probably something abusive... is he still alive?

Great lineup, but let's remember these are players gathered over 30 years.

Still, I'd feel safe with:

..........................Bolton
Milligan.....Colosimo....Rudan.....Carney
...................Talay......Carle
Emerton.............................Corica
...........Yorke.........Brosque
Subs - Necevski, Popovic, Boschaart, Cole, Musialik, McFlynn, Kisel, Aloisi, Petrovski.

Not bad from my club over just 7 years

Yeah he is still alive spends a lot of time in Thailand giving the FA lads updates on the Thai League and the best lady boys :lol: He discovered how to operate twitter so you can only imagine what some individuals are copping. I must say whenever the forum was close to dying from a law suit ECP always came to help. Shame you left, missed out on fronty giving Clive Palmer the idea to fly the helicopter with Freedom of Speech sign at Newcastle :lol:

C'mon we all know the Canberra Cosmos would be up there. My all time best side would include Grella and err....

... Rale Rasic as coach...

LOL

Can someone post their best Adelaide city line up

they had some truly quality sides - especially during the Zoran Matic era

Edited by chris: 29/4/2012 11:06:16 PM

I'll have a go:

Zabica
Shillabeer....Ivanovic....Tobin....T. Vidmar
.............................Melta
Lozanovski..........A. Vidmar......Villani
...................Mori.........Veart
Subs: J. Petkovic, Nyskohus, Santrac, Maxwell, Mullen

Zabica

B.Nyskohus
Tobin
Ivanovic
T.Vidmar

Veart
Muniz
A.Vidmar

Mori
Pelosi
Deans

subs: Melta, J.Nyskohus, Maxwell, J.Petkovic

In 1930, Adamstown were NSW champions, Footscray Thistle were Victorian champions, and West Adelaide were South Australian champions... so I don't know where that leaves us!

West Adelaide weren't even the strongest club in SA at the time, and faded into obscurity soon afterwards. West Torrens, Kingswood, Port and Port Thistle were the strongest SA clubs in the 20s and 30s. West Adelaide supposedly amalgamated with Hellas in 1962 to form West Adelaide Hellas, but I have my doubts about that story.. West disapeared well before then.

In NSW, the strongest Sydney clubs at the time were Pyrmont, Granville and Gladesville; but south coast clubs like Balgownie were also strong, and, like the Newcastle clubs, competed on an equal footing with the Sydney clubs.



Edited by localstar: 9/5/2012 02:31:17 PM

@localstar - did the Sydney clubs play in the same league as the Newcastle and south coast ones?

Not sure about south coast... I know South Coast United played in the Sydney comp in the 1960's.

Newcastle clubs played in the same comp as Sydney clubs between 1927 and 1956.

Great side definately. Shame you couldn't find any spots for 'favourite' sons like Drago Deankovic, Luka Bonacic, Sulemein Curovic.....(just having a laugh).

Tommy Cumming was such a brilliant player. Played for the Socceroo's even though he played in the 2nd tier state league. Pretty sure the last player to ever do so. Had many offers to go to the NSL but stayed loyal to Melb Croatia. Legend has it that the Cro's built him a house to stay.

I remember Sydney Croatia built Arnie a house when he played for them.

Dont think we built him a house. We did a lot of work around his house though

At our 50 year gala he told the story of when Kalac's old man came to his place to concrete his driveway

I gotta say, some racial stereotypes do hold true...:lol: :lol:

The story I remember was that they did build him a house, but I could be wrong, it's been nearly 30 years. Some great players in that Croatia side of the mid-late ;80s - Arnold, Patikas, Slater, Clinch, Franken, Jones, Hunter. Can't actually remember too many Croatian boys tbh, but I am sure they were there. And your '97-98 sides were real quality too.

I think we may have given Rozic a house? Or possibly another Cro import. Dont think it was Arnie

It was the 96/97 side that was class - Milicic, Marusic, Kalac, young Jason Culina, Zdrilic etc

And Rozic would've deserved it, the guy was IMO at the time the best player in the league, just seemed to have hours on the ball at the back, his distribution was excellent. Shit, he must be nearly 60 now, I'm getting old...

The '97 side was all class. There were some quality sides in the NSL over the years, and that one was one of them. But $$$ was obviously tight, and the next season Dave Mitchell left and took half the team to Parramatta with him...Except Marusic who went to Spirit and I think Culina went to Olympic for a season or two before going o/s.

As for Milicic, I always thought him highly underrated in the green and gold. A class act, surprised he didn;t carve out a bogger career o/s.

Sounds funny and bizzare nowdays but that's how things where done back then. Very, very informal. Star player would 'work' at club presidents business during the week for 'cash', club fans would concrete, do other trade work on players homes in lieu of match payments etc. Nowdays we have wankers like Kewell asking for clauses/bonuses if MV sell and extra 50 shirts and if an away team gets a few thousand extra through the gate when he comes to town!!!
Rozic was an absolute superstar.

Arnie himself was a qualified carpenter in his younger days... he could have built the house himself!

Different era mate. Although a HAL player on $70K would welcome someone to come in and do some free tradie work around his house.

You're getting mixed up with the '99 side.

The 97 side was split up for a number of reasons - a few players went overseas (Milicic, Zdrilic, Kalac etc), Marusic and Enes to Spirit, Culina took his son to Olympic, a couple of others went to other NSL clubs (Mark Babic to Marconi, Trajkovski to Perth for eg)

The '99 side won the Minor Premiership and lost to South Melbourne in the final. That side was the one who was raped by Parra Power. The squad had Mile Sterjovski, Joel Griffiths, Nathan Day, Jacob Burns, Bennett, Berry, Barrett, Vrkic, Plesa etc... A couple of players stayed, but about 18 moved across to Parra Power if memory serves me right

Club never recovered from that

You're right too, it was the '99 side. By that stage the dominance was starting to go the way of Wollongong and Perth as well, while Spirit quickly went on the slide after about 2000.

Mehm commented on this at the match on Sunday - asked if he felt differently about coaches now that he's done the job, compared to when he was a player, he said (something along the lines of) "we played because we loved the game and had a great team spirit, most of the guys today just want to get paid, nothing else matters"

Different times, granted, but I think Mehm is looking at things through rose tinted glasses. There were pay disputes within the NT in the '80s and in the '90s, and at one point the team went on strike for better pay and refused to train. And players negotiated their contracts as hard back then as they do now, it's just that the money was a lot less.

Maybe kids these days see more of a "progression path" from training hard to getting paid, that's possible, but IMO that's only because kids these days are so much more aware of the real world than we were due to the never ending stream of information coming their way.

I remember meeting a guy in the '80s who had played keeper in the NSL, but due to injury had missed a season and found himself basically out of the loop. Sorry can;t remember his name, he was of South American background, that's all I remember. I asked him why he wouldn't just join a lower level team to get himself back into it and put himself back in the frame. His response? An almost contemptuous "Who's gonna pay me?".

I know that's just one person, but IMO things aren't dramatically different today from back then. In fact, due to the advent of the HAL we have now shown kids they can have a football career path in the country. Not a bad thing at all IMO.

no we just kept his fridge full of VB and he was contempt!!lol