Hume City Football Club is a semi-professional Australian
football
Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...
club based in
Broadmeadows, a suburb of
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
,
Victoria. Established by the local
Turkish Australian
Turkish Australians ( tr, ) or Australian Turks ( tr, ) are Australians who have migrated from Turkey or who have Turkish ancestral origins.
Turks first began to emigrate to Australia from the island of Cyprus for work in the 1940s, and the ...
community, the club competes in the
National Premier Leagues Victoria
The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer leagu ...
.
The club, known by the local
Turkish Australian
Turkish Australians ( tr, ) or Australian Turks ( tr, ) are Australians who have migrated from Turkey or who have Turkish ancestral origins.
Turks first began to emigrate to Australia from the island of Cyprus for work in the 1940s, and the ...
community as ''Anadoluspor'', is the most successful
Turkish Australian
Turkish Australians ( tr, ) or Australian Turks ( tr, ) are Australians who have migrated from Turkey or who have Turkish ancestral origins.
Turks first began to emigrate to Australia from the island of Cyprus for work in the 1940s, and the ...
-backed football club in Australia.
Hume City has senior men's, women's and junior boys and girls teams, all based out of
John Ilhan Memorial Reserve
John Ilhan Memorial Reserve, commercially known as VPEC, Valley Park Events Centre and often referred to as Broadmeadows Valley Park, is an Australian soccer ground in Broadmeadows, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria.
It is the home of Hume City F ...
.
History
The club was established as ''Holland Park Football Club'' in 1979 by Cengiz Binyazar, Halit Kirdar and Abdullah Saglam. The club officially registered with the Victorian Soccer Federation in 1979, with Emin Aslan holding the position of president in its inaugural season.
In 1993, the club decided on a change of direction and to take the club to higher places, out of the amateur divisions. The first step was the move to Reddish Reserve and to rename the club ''North Coburg Soccer Club''. The club took on many more juniors. North Coburg achieved promotion from State League 4 in 1996, finishing the season in second place, and promoted again from State League 3 in 1999, finishing third. In the club's first ever season in Victorian State League Division 2 Nth-West it finished in fourth place, narrowly missing out on a promotion playoff place. In 2001, the club made the finals series after placing 3rd in the league but didn't win the playoff. In 2002, after coming close the previous two season, the club achieved promotion from State League 2 N/W to State League 1, the highest level the club had ever reached. The club achieved four successive mid-table finishes in State League 1.
In 2006, the club was known as ''Coburg United Soccer Club'' and played its home matches at
Knights Stadium
Knights Stadium was a baseball stadium which served as the home of the International League's Charlotte Knights from 1990 to 2013 and had a capacity of 10,002. The park was located across the state line from Charlotte, North Carolina, in Fort Mil ...
in
North Sunshine, Victoria. North Coburg achieved promotion in 2007 after a 2nd-place finish to reach the
Victorian Premier League
The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer leagu ...
for the first time in the club's history. The achievement marked a meteoric rise by the club, achieving four promotions in eleven years to go from State League 4 to the top division. After making it into the Premier League in 2007, the club was almost relegated if it wasn't for a 93rd-minute header by one of its local heroes
Tansel Başer against
Frankston Pines
Frankston Pines Football Club is an Australian soccer club based in Frankston North, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. The club was formed by local Scottish Australians in 1965. Their home ground is Monterey Reserve, which holds approximately 4, ...
.
The club was renamed to ''Hume City Football Club'' in 2009, when they moved to their new facilities at
Broadmeadows Valley Park
Broadmeadows Valley Park is an area of undeveloped land stretching from the northern extents of Meadow Heights to the southern extents of Jacana in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
A section of The Moonee Ponds Creek flows through the park wit ...
, in the
City of Hume. A huge occasion was marked in 2014 when Hume officially opened up its new $12m facilities which included three grass pitches, a "3G" pitch, a state-of-the-art grandstand and modern clubrooms and changeroom facilities. The club underwent yet another re-brand in 2015, changing their logo "for a new identity, to represent the club's past, present and future".
Hume managed a 6th-placed finish in 2014, the first season of the newly formed 14 team
National Premier Leagues Victoria
The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer leagu ...
, what was former known as the
Victorian Premier League
The National Premier Leagues Victoria, commonly known as NPL Victoria, is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer leagu ...
.
In 2015, Hume qualified for the reintroduced finals series after a 5th-placed finish. City went on to beat
Melbourne Knights on penalties in the elimination final, after goalkeeper Chris Oldfield saved all four of Knights' penalties in the penalty shootout. The club then lost to eventual winners
Bentleigh Greens
Bentleigh Greens Soccer Club is an Australian semi professional soccer club based in Cheltenham, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria. The club was formed in 1986, by the Greek Cypriot community and currently competes in the National Premier Leagues ...
. That same season, Hume went on an impressive
FFA Cup run. They drew Queensland NPL side
Brisbane Strikers in the Round of 32 and looked set to bow out, but managed a 91st-minute equaliser and went on to win 4–3 in extra time. The Broadmeadows side then drew New South Wales'
Sydney Olympic
Sydney Olympic Football Club is an Australian semi-professional association football, soccer club, based in Belmore, New South Wales, Belmore, Sydney, New South Wales, that plays in the National Premier Leagues NSW. The Club was founded as Pan- ...
, another former NSL club, in the Round of 16 and won 3–1 in front of over 1,500 people at the ABD Stadium. In the quarter finals, the Club defeated fellow NPL Victoria side
Oakleigh Cannons
Oakleigh Cannons Football Club is a soccer club based in the south-east Melbourne suburb of Oakleigh, Victoria, Australia. The club, established by members of Oakleigh's Greek Australian community, currently competes in the NPL Victoria. The cl ...
3–2, with a 118th-minute winner from Marcus Schroen, in front of 1,504 people at ABD Stadium. The club then played defending
A-League
A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...
champions
Melbourne Victory
Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...
, but went down 3–0 to the premiers and champions of Australia. 6,575 people attended the fixture in what was City's highest ever attendance for a home fixture.
In the off-season, Anadolu were dealt blows when midfielder Schroen left for NPL rivals
South Melbourne and winger
Jai Ingham
Jai Emile Mau'u Ingham (born 14 August 1993) is a professional footballer who plays a winger for National Premier Leagues club South Melbourne. Born in Australia and of New Zealand and Samoan descent, Ingham has represented the New Zealand inter ...
signed for
A-League
A-League Men (known as the Isuzu UTE A-League for sponsorship reasons) is the highest-level professional men's soccer league in Australia and New Zealand. At the top of the Australian league system, it is the country's premier men's competiti ...
side
Melbourne Victory
Melbourne Victory Football Club is an Australian professional soccer club based in Melbourne, Victoria. Competing in the country's premier men's competition, the A-League Men, under licence from Australian Professional Leagues (APL), Victory e ...
. Hume qualified for the
2016 FFA Cup
Sixteen or 16 may refer to:
*16 (number), the natural number following 15 and preceding 17
*one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016
Films
* '' Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film
* ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film d ...
, drawing
NPL NSW 2 side
Marconi Stallions at home. In July 2016, Hume announced that head coach
Lupce Acevski
Lupce "Lou" Acevski (born 14 November 1977) is an Australian former soccer goalkeeper who later became a coach. As a player, he played 71 times in the Australian National Soccer League (NSL) for Melbourne Knights, Northern Spirit and Adelaid ...
departed the club "by my mutual consent".
Then technical director Dean Hennessy took over as caretaker coach for the rest of the 2016 season.
In the FFA Cup clash, Marconi took the lead in extra time. Hume, upholding their reputation in the Cup as "comeback kings", equalised in the 117th minute, eventually winning the clash in a penalty shoot-out. In the Round of 16, Hume again drew Melbourne Victory.
Besart Berisha's first half penalty decided the fixture in front of 2,866 people, the largest ever crowd at ABD Stadium. Hume City finished 6th in the league, losing 3–0 to South Melbourne in the Elimination Final.
After the 2016 season, the senior squad went through major change, re-signing just five players from the previous season. Hume made a coaching change in May 2017, with Ufuk Kubilayhan appointed to take over from David Chick. Hume qualified for the
2017 FFA Cup
The 2017 FFA Cup was the fourth season of the FFA Cup, the main national soccer knockout cup competition in Australia. 32 teams began competing in the competition proper (from the round of 32), including the 10 A-League teams and 21 Football Fed ...
, but lost in the Round of 32 to Bentleigh. In the league, Hume finished in 8th place, after Nick Hegarty became
player-coach in July.
Hume City finished in 11th place in 2018, also losing 2–1 to
Richmond SC
Richmond Soccer Club is an Australian soccer club from Richmond, Victoria, an inner eastern suburb of Melbourne, Australia. Richmond compete in the Victorian State League Division 1 South-East competition, the third tier of football in Victor ...
in the FFA Cup qualifying rounds, Richmond competing in
State League Division 1, two divisions below Hume.
Hume City won the
2019 Dockerty Cup
The 2019 Dockerty Cup was a football (soccer) knockout-cup competition held between men's clubs in Victoria, Australia in 2019, the annual edition of the Dockerty Cup. Victorian soccer clubs from the National Premier Leagues Victoria divisions, ...
with a 1–0 win over
Melbourne Knights FC. The trophy was Hume's first Dockerty Cup win and first piece of major silverware in the club's history.
Current squad
Women
Hume City entered a women's team in the
Football Federation Victoria Women's State League 4 North competition in 2017, the fifth and bottom tier of women's football in the state. In its first year in the competition, City won the league winning every single one of its 18 games, finishing with a goal differential of +186, conceding just five goals all year. Ebru Hasan scored 93 goals.
The following season, Hume City won a second straight championship and promotion, winning the Women's State League 3 West with three games to spare, by winning 15 consecutive games in the league. In a sign of their dominance, Hume won three games by 13 goals, one by 12 and one by 11. On 10 August 2018, Hume dropped its first game since entering the Victorian state league system when it lost 4–0 to
St Albans Saints SC
St Albans Saints Soccer Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club based in St Albans, Victoria. Established by local Croatian Australians as Dinamo, the club is a regular participant in the Australian-Croatian Soccer Tournament. The c ...
.
Honours
*Victorian Amateur League Division 2 (1): 1981
*Victorian Provisional League Division 4 (1): 1982
*Victorian Metropolitan League Division 4 (1): 1988
*
Dockerty Cup (1): 2019
Source:
External links
Official websiteHume City FC TeamsFootball Federation Victoria(Official website)
References
{{AUS fb state Vic
National Premier Leagues clubs
Soccer clubs in Melbourne
Victorian Premier League teams
Turkish association football clubs outside Turkey
Association football clubs established in 1979
1979 establishments in Australia
Diaspora sports clubs in Australia
Sport in the City of Hume
Turkish-Australian culture