South Melbourne

South Melbourne Football Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club based in suburb of Albert Park, in Melbourne, Victoria. The club currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria, with matches played at Lakeside Stadium.

The club was founded in 1959 by Greek migrants following World War 2 as South Melbourne Hellas, with a basis in the Greek community.

The club has won four Australian national championships, a string of Victorian State League titles, numerous Dockerty Cups and represented Oceania in the 2000 FIFA Club World Championship. Along with the Marconi Stallions, they were one of two clubs to compete in every season of the National Soccer League.

The club was chosen by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics as the Oceania team of the 20th century and as Australia's most successful club.

History

Formation

South Melbourne was formed in 1959 with the amalgamation of three struggling Melbourne soccer clubs—South Melbourne United, the oldest of the three clubs with a history dating back to the early 1900s—the Greek-backed Yarra Park Aias (Ajax), and Hellenic. Theo Marmaras, initiator of the merger proposal and president of Hellenic, became the first president of the new club. In recognition of the large Greek Australian support base of Hellenic and Yarra Park, which were also the best-supported of the three clubs, the new club was named South Melbourne Hellas, the name by which it was to be known for the majority of its 50 years. The first emblem reflected the colour scheme of the Greek national flag. The first uniform consisted of jersey of white with a red 'V' around the collar, the was also that of South Melbourne United, as well as blue shorts and blue and white hooped socks. Later on they would adopt predominantly blue and white strips, with various designs throughout the seasons, with the most common being a predominantly royal blue strip.

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