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“More
Than The Game: Fifty years of Sydney United” is
a new book published by the club to mark its fiftieth anniversary of competitive
football. This attractive, three hundred page hard bound monograph features
hundreds of photographs and statistics, and provides a detailed year by
year account of the club's exploits on and off the football field. The
book traces the origins of the club from games between newly arrived migrants
in Sydney's Moore Park in the 1950s and recounts its many footballing
successes over the past 50 years.
Established as Croatia Sydney
in 1957, Sydney United is one of Australia’s most successful football
clubs. Since first entering a team in a competitive league in 1958 to
date, more than sixty Socceroos have played for the club, many of them
products of its highly successful youth program. After climbing quickly
to the First Division of the NSW Soccer Federation in the early 1960s,
the club has enjoyed several periods of on field success at the highest
levels of football in the country.
“More Than The Game:
Fifty years of Sydney United” is a story that parallels the history
of Sydney’s Australian Croatian community and tells the tale of
its quest for recognition on equal terms and remarkable contribution to
football in Australia.
Excerpt from p 62
South Sydney Croatia played
a classic encounter early in the 1971 season. The words of Maurice Sullivan,
who starred on the day, speak for themselves.
" I consider
this game to be one of the greatest highlights of the Croatia club. We
played against Yugal at Wentworth Park in 1971 in front of 5000 fans just
after Michael Kiš took over as coach from Rex Foster. The old supporters
will always remember that game. We were down 2-0 early in the second half.
With fifteen minutes to go Yugal was outplaying us....(then) I scored
two goal in three minutes to level the scores. We then got a penalty which
Nigel Shepherd converted to make it 3-2. Eventually we won 4-2. Our coach
was so excited on the bench that he was waving to our fans and urging
them on, resulting in his expulsion from the field. Our fans will always
remember this tremendous fight back as one of the greatest moments ever
for the club, and it came as revenge for our loss in the semi-final in
1970."
Request to Order the
book -Click
Here
The book is also available for purchase from the King Tom Club. Ask at the bar inside.
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