Burwood Football Club
Established – 1971
Home grounds – Blair Park and Centenary Park
Current members – 786
Previous names – Holy Innocents
In 1971, members of the Croydon community whose children attended Holy Innocents school entered a few teams in the Western Suburbs Soccer Association (WSSA) competition.
They played under the name of their school (Holy Innocents), with Brian Thomas a founding member and life member and involved with the club for many years.
The club played in the WSSA up until 1976 when the association folded.
In 1977, the club joined the CDSFA and in 1980 was renamed Burwood Soccer Club, before changing its name again in 2009 to Burwood Football Club (BFC).
BFC has grown from two teams in 1971 playing at Blair Park to almost 60 teams and nearly 800 players in 2021.
It now has three main fields - one full field at Blair Park, two full fields at Centenary Park, which also has two mini fields. The club started playing at Centenary Park in 1998.
BFC has experienced success in the CDSFA over many years and teams have also competed in statewide and worldwide tournaments.
In particular a core team of players coached by Les Gabor has won a number of prestigious tournaments including Champion of Champions in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2011 and State Cup in 2005, 2007 and 2011. No other team has won the State Cup and Champion of Champions in the same season.
In 2004, the BFC under-9/1 team were Strikers Cup champions.
In 2009 an over-50 BFC team managed by Andy McVeigh won the gold medal in the World Masters, beating a team made up of ex-Thai national players 8-7 in a penalty shootout.
Some Burwood players have gone onto success at higher levels: Eddy Bosnar played professionally in the A-League, Korea and a number of years in Japan.
Milan Bosnar and Ivan Bosnar have also played professionally for various clubs including Sydney United.
In 2009, Vincent Giannini went on to represent Australia in the Junior Socceroos (under-13).
On 5 August 2017 the new Centenary Pavilion was opened after 5 years of hard work, negotiations and fundraising.
