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St George FC, commonly called St George Saints or just Saints, is a semi-professional Australian association football club based in the St George district in the south of Sydney, New South Wales. The club was founded by Hungarian immigrants in 1957 as Budapest Club and by 1965 was renamed to St. George-Budapest Club. One of the top clubs of Australia from the 1960s to the 1980s. St George currently competes in the second-highest tier of Australian association football, the NSW National Premier League Mens 1 after achieving promotion in 2013 from the NSW Super League. Their home ground is the St George Stadium. == History == The club was formed shortly after the end of World War II by Hungarian Immigrants and was originally known as Budapest. In the 1960s, led by pioneering football administrator Alex Pongrass, it became one of the first ethnic clubs in NSW to search for a district to call home and it chose the St George district. It later became known as St George-Budapest before shortening its name to St George some years later. They opened a licensed club, named Soccer House, in the suburb of Mortdale in 1968. In 1969 Frank Arok, the first full-time coach in Australia was appointed, serving two stints as coach, the last ending in 1983 when he left to coach the Socceroos. In between Arok's two stints as coach, Rale Rasic was coach, coaching the club at the same time as he was coaching the Socceroos. In 1972 the club was invited to an international club tournament in Tokyo, Japan. It won and remained the highest ever international achievement by an Australian club side, until the Western Sydney Wanderers 2014 victory in the Asian Champions League. Such was the dominance of St George in those days that up to 10 players on the national team would be St George players. In 1974 the team set a record for the most players from any one club side on a World Cup team when 5 of their players were on the Australian side that started against East Germany in the World Cup that year in West Germany, including the vice-captain of the side, the late Australian footballing legend Johnny Warren. Another notable player (albeit at a lower level), was football commentator Les Murray. Together with Warren they would become known as "Mr and Mrs Soccer" and would become the faces of football in Australia through their commentary work on SBS Television. In 1975 at the urging of some former Hungarian soccer greats and youth coach Bob Szatmari, the meeting determined to establish the Australian National Soccer League took place at Soccer House with representatives from all founding clubs, including Hakoah Club (later known as ''Eastern Suburbs'' and ''Sydney City'') president and Westfield Group founder and chairman Frank Lowy and Leslie Szatmari. The competition started in 1977 and St. George-Budapest won the competition in 1983. They played in the league until the 1990/91 season. Since then they have played in state competitions. In 2005 the side was controversially axed from the new look New South Wales Premier League and took legal action against the decision along with the Bonnyrigg White Eagles, but were unsuccessful. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「St George FC」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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