THE Swan Hill Soccer League is set to honour five decades of passion, perseverance and memorable world game moments when it celebrates its 50th season on Saturday.
Established as a league in 1974, the first ball wasn’t kicked in anger until a year later when it was then known as the Central Victoria Soccer League, before later becoming the Swan Hill Junior Soccer League.
With a long and storied history encompassing both junior and senior male and female teams, there will be a much to celebrate for an organisation that has grown from humble beginnings.
The on-field activities will kick off with the league’s mini-roos program at 9am and conclude with Swan Hill’s men’s side, who remain in the running to claim their second straight Bendigo Amateur Soccer League division 2 title.
A gala event is planned for Saturday evening at the neighbouring Italian Social Club, with presentations, awards and the retelling of many stories from the clubs past sure to go long into the night.
For Swan Hill Soccer League president Ben Muir-Howie, Saturday will not only be the culmination of 50 years of the world game in Swan Hill, but of almost six months’ planning and hard work to ensure the day is celebrated by all associated with the club.
“It will be a whole day and night celebration, but it’s broken down into two parts with all our teams playing at home during the day and then everyone celebrating together that night,” Muir-Howie told The Guardian this week.
“To have all four BASL teams playing on same day and after our Saturday juniors will be really exciting for us as a club.
“It will be the first time since I’ve been part of the club that we’ve had a day of soccer stretching from Saturday juniors first thing in the morning and then go all the way through to our two senior teams.
“Regardless of the occasion, that in itself will be massive for the club, the players and the coaches to just be there and watch and support each other.
“That then brings us to the formal formalities at night with dinner and hopefully a fair few of our club’s past players and presidents and committee members all returning to the club.
“Just being in the same room at the same time as some of these legends of our club and people who have given so much of their time over the years to our club, especially in the early years will be quite special.
“I’m really looking forward to meeting to some of the people from our past who for whatever reason have moved away, but are still so highly revered in our club for everything that they have done.”
From the mid-1970s through to the early 1980s, soccer was a growing sport in the region, with teams from outlying communities such as Woorinen, Lake Boga and Tooleybuc competing against one another.
While senior soccer slowly took a back seat throughout the late 1980s and 1990s, junior soccer raced along in leaps and bounds with hundreds of children participating every Saturday in its heyday.
As with most community sports these days, the league’s junior numbers have dwindled in recent years, although still remain at relatively healthy levels.
But it has been the senior side of the league which has blossomed over the past two decades, with Swan Hill entering senior men’s and youth teams in the Bendigo Amateur Soccer League in 2006.
The club’s women’s team followed their male counterparts 12 months later, with Swan Hill also entering junior boys and girls teams in the Bendigo based competition in recent seasons.
For legendary club figure Tony Di Palma, he has seen it all, with the senior men’s coach and life member of the club understandably excited to celebrate a such a major milestone of the club he loves.
“(This weekend) is massive, to see the club grow from the small club rooms we had and used for decades and to see what we have now in terms of facilities and the number of participants is fantastic,” Di Palma said.
“We have a million dollar complex now and more importantly it’s something of our own, everyone should be just proud of themselves of how far we’ve come and what we’ve accomplished to get to this point in our history.
“It’s quite surreal to think that it’s been 50 years and to think of all the people who have put in their time and their passion towards our club that was not very big at all at the start.
“If you compare us to some of the Aussie rules or Central Murray football clubs around town, a lot of them have that support with infrastructure and volunteers and money and they can accomplish things a lot quicker.
“For us, for what we went through over the last 30 or 40 years and to build a club from pretty much nothing is massive.”
While 2025 and indeed this weekend will be an opportunity to celebrate the past, it will also be a chance to acknowledge the present as well, with the club in the midst of one of its most successful on-field periods in its 50 years in existence.
The clubs under 14s and under 16s teams have already claimed their respective championships, with a Super Cup finals berth also locked in, along with the men’s who currently sit second on the ladder.
Hoping to join them this weekend will be Swan Hill’s women’s team, with victory against La Trobe University SC set to see them qualify for the women’s Super Cup finals series for the first time since their inception in 2007.
