1962 Articles

After a successful 1961 season the Club was promoted to Grade A2. There was great enthusiasm amongst the Greek youth concerning the Football Club, not only those who played in 1961 but also amongst players from other teams who had heard of the Club’s efforts.

At the beginning of the season, Chris Stevens was elected as President.

Due to the influx of players, it was decided to field two teams, one in A2 and the other in A3. Pat Veaney was appointed Coach of the A team and Emanuel Bambacas Coach of the B ‘s.

The Greeks lost their first game to Clayton Congregational in a close encounter 11-7 (73) to 10-6 (66) but won the next game against Maylands Methodist 8-13 (61) to 7-10 (52). The A Team went on to finish fourth at the end of the minor round with 9 wins and 5 losses. The B team however, had a more inglorious result in having lost every game by an average margin of 20 goals. Nevertheless, it did provide a handful of A Grade players and on many occasions fielded a team with only 14-16 footballers.

The Greeks met Alberton Methodist in the First Semi Final and after a fierce three quarters the scores were tied 8-11 (59) to 9-5 (59). In the last quarter the lead changed hands many times but the Greeks kicked 2 goals in the last two minutes to win 12-13 (85) to 12-6 (78).

In the Preliminary Final against Clayton Congregational the scores were all tied up at half time but the Greeks edged away to lead by 22 points at three quarter time. In the last quarter Clayton played superior football to run out comfortable winners 10-8 (68) to 8-8 (56).

Tom Frossinakis won both the Association Best and Fairest Award (on a countback from Keith Davis who was to Coach the G.F.C. in later years) and also the Club’s Best and Fairest. Keith was one of our fiercest rivals in our early years.

Emanuel Bambacas won the B Grade Best and Fairest.

Nick Protopapa was the top goalkicker with 30 goals.

Tom Frossinakis, Sid Adinis, Bob Rigoni and Nick Nicholas, represented the United Church Football League in inter-association matches during the year.

During this year, the Greek Club, affiliated with and played under the banner of The Greek Orthodox Youth Association of South Australia (G.O.Y.A.) whilst always retaining the name of the Greek Orthodox Football Club.

All in all, 1962 was a successful year and a Premiership seemed a distinct possibility in 1963.