North Geelong Warriors FC

North Geelong Warriors Football Club, formerly known as North Geelong Croatia, is an Australian semi-professional soccer club from the regional Victorian city of Geelong. The club currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria 2, Australia's third division in the country's league system. The club was founded in 1967 by a large contingent of ethnic Croatians in the city of Geelong. The Warriors' home base is Elcho Park in the northern Geelong suburb of Lara.

North Geelong is a regular participant in the Australian-Croatian Soccer Tournament, which it has hosted four times and won for the first time in 2014, Wollongong. The club's greatest achievement is winning the 1992 Victorian Premier League title, becoming the first promoted side to achieve the feat.

History

Early Beginnings

North Geelong Croatia Soccer Club was formed in December 1967 by newly arrived Croatian migrants Mirko Hrkac, Ivan Sesar, Vinko Radojevic and Aldo Siketa. North Geelong's first season saw it compete in Division 2 of the Ballarat, Geelong and Districts Soccer Association (BGDSA) in 1968, finishing in fourth place of the ten team division. The following year, North competed in Division 1 and a reserve side was formed. In 1970, the club fielded its first junior side, which competed under the name North United.

The 1970s

In 1972, the Club competed in the Victorian Provisional League for the first time in its history. The season was marred by an incident involving an altercation with a referee in North Geelong's Round 6 match against Werribee which saw the club immediately expelled from the Victorian Provisional League. The VSF disallowed the club from competing in any further matches that year.

North Geelong was accepted back into the BGDSA competition in 1973, where it was, for the majority of seasons, the dominant force in the league. Croatia won the BDGSA league five times in six years between 1973 and 1978.

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