Woonona Sharks FC ready to celebrate 130 years with FFA Cup battle
Illawarra Premier League local club, the Woonona Sharks Football Club are excited to celebrate their 130th year anniversary in 2019 and with this in mind will hope to kick things off on the right foot with a round 3 FFA Cup victory the Blacktown Workers on the 27th of March.
Over the past number of years, the club has enjoyed a number of success stories within our involvement of the Football South Coast Association.
It’s now time to celebrate that significant milestone this season starting with an appearance in the 2019 FFA Cup.
Woonona Football Club was formed by the local soccer community who were predominately immigrants and coal miners who had a passion for soccer.
Based on the records of the N.S.W Soccer Football Association, Woonona Soccer Club was founded in 1889.
This makes Woonona the second oldest club still operating continuously in the South Coast Region. Balgownie is the oldest and was formed in 1885.
To bring perspective to the time period, over in the UK, Liverpool Football Club was first established in 1892.
In NSW in the early to mid 1880’s there were only five soccer teams in the Sydney area and today many of these clubs have since disappeared.
Over the years the Woonona Club has had many wonderful players of great talent with several playing in state and national representative teams.
Charles Tolhurst is the first recorded Woonona player to represent Australia.
He played against New Zealand in three tests in 1903. Charles was born in 1884 and represented his country at the age of 19.
Others to represent Woonona and Australia were Charlie Stewart, Arthur Veigel, Jim Cunningham, Ted Drain, Jim Jenkins, Eric Duff, Bob Bignall, Barry Salisbury, Adrian Alston and Ruben Zadkovich.
The Woonona FC committee, coaches and players jointly made a decision to again re-join the competition this year with a few objectives in mind.
The first objective was to have the players experience and enjoy the overall concept of this knockout tournament.
This would enable the players to test themselves against non-Football South Coast teams and other teams from outside the local area to gauge how they perform against these teams, their tactics and match structures.
The second objective was to place our Woonona Football Club name out there in the national football community to show that Woonona FC are in fact one of the oldest & continuous proud clubs still participating and playing football/soccer in Australia.
There are not many teams within Australia that has been playing continuously for 130 years such as Woonona FC.
The boys from Ocean Park first entered the FFA Cup in its second year in 2015.
The Sharks had a magical cup run in their maiden Cup year where they dispatched Southern Ettalong United FC from the Central Coast, followed by Sydney CBD FC, then a tough trip Hawkesbury City ended their cup dream with a 2-0 defeat in the 6th round.
Then in 2016, Woonona stumbled out of the campaign in round 4 to Pagewood Botany after going a man down early in the match.
Fast forward two years and without a FFA Cup appearance, the significance of celebrating it’s 130th Year Anniversary Woonona FC have again decided to enter the FFA Cup.
“We enter the FFA Cup this season looking to celebrate some success outside our own competition.” Woonona Sharks Head Coach Dan McGoldrick said.
“The significance of the club turning 130 years old and prestige of the FFA Cup go hand in hand.”
“If we put our best foot forward on the night and represent the club with pride, put our name out there, it’s a competition where anything can happen.”
A round 3 clash with Blacktown Workers FC awaits on the 27th March at H E Laybutt Reserve.
