Club History

Rockdale City Suns Football Club are a community based sporting organisation currently participating in the NSW Premier League Football competition. Established in 1969 by a group of Macedonian Australians, the Club has grown over the years considerably. The Club plays in the NPL NSW MEN’S 1 Competition. In addition, our SAP and Youth teams also compete in the highest level of their respective divisions.

The Club participates in the local St,George Football Association where the Club has many teams ranging in age groups from 6s to All Age. In 2017 the club fielded a record 500+ juniors across all divisions of mens and womens competition.

The Club was formed in 1969 by a group of Macedonian Australians who gave the team the name “Ilinden” which has special meaning for all Macedonians throughout history.

On the field, highlights include Grand Final wins (of different Leagues) in 1984, 2000 and 2006. Despite tasting success in the early 80’s, the most impressive achievement on the field came in 2002 when the Club, coached by Mile Todoroski won the Premiership/Championship double with only 1 loss in 24 games. In the Grand Final, the Club played Hajduk Wanderers in difficult conditions at the spiritual home of the Suns, the Rockdale Ilinden Sports Centre. Captained by Spase Najdoski, the Club won 1-0 in front of 3000 screaming supporters.

In 2006, the Club again achieved the ultimate success when it won the Grand Final over Penrith Nepean United 1-0 at Melita Stadium.

Well credentialed coaches at the Club over the years include: 1969 > Nikola Nikolovski , Kaz Kulak, Archie Blue, Ilija Takac, Ati Abonyi, Ljubo Gojkovic, Geoff Hoggart, John Fleming, Ljubo Jancev, Bill Pilovski, Manfred Schaefer, Risto Gojkovski, Rale Rasic, Doug Utjesenovic, Bill Temelkovski, Bill Boskovski, Gerry Gomez, Mile Todoroski, Ivan Petkovic, Zlatko Nastevski, Michael Urakalo, Mike Grbevski.

For the 2009 season the Club board secured Mile Todorovski, Mile in 2008 was awarded super league coach of the year, Many clubs tried to secure Todorovski for 2009, eventually Rockdale proved to have the right vision for Todorovski.

Since 2009, the Club has consistently performed at the highest level and along the way has been led by manly notable coaches including Lee Sterrey, Wally Savor, Mark Rudan and Branko Culina.

It was under the leadership of Branko Culina that in 2014 the Club made the grand final of the NSW NPL Men’s 1 competition where we narrowly lost 1-0 to Bonnyrigg.

Over the years, the Club has also played high profile matches against famous Macedonian Clubs including Vardar Skopje and Pobeda Prilep, former World Club Champions Red Star Belgrade, and the Australian train-on squad. During the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games, The Club hosted the Italian Olympic Football team, Also the Iraqi World Cup Qualifying Team in 2008. In recent years, the Ilinden Sports Centre has hosted training camps for Chinese Super League teams and visiting teams from South America.

In 2015, the Club went on a great run in the newly formed FFA Cup making it to the round of 16 where before over 5000 fans at OKI Jubilee, we went within a whisker of defeating the Australian Champions Melbourne Victory. We may have lost the game 3-2, but we had our visitors under the pump for the last 15 minutes of the game. We remained the only team to score against the Victory along the way.

In 2017, we defended our Maso Cup crown, retained the Leader Cup over local rivals Sutherland and finished third on the ladder missing out on the grand final following a narrow penalty shoot out loss to eventual champions Manly United.

In 2018, the Club will again compete in the NPL NSW Men’s competition under the leadership of player coach Paul Reid, assisted by Matthew Ribarovski.

The club is also mindful of its origins and supports the growing Maso Cup. The Cup was born in Rockdale and the 2016 edition, played in Wollongong, featured teams from NSW, Queensland, the ACT and three Victorian teams. The 2017 edition was held on our field where we made it three in a row.

The Club could not have achieved its success over the years without the support of the many many volunteers and the local community.

The club has embarked on an ambitious project to have the playing surface converted to a synthetic surface which will secure our place for years to come by providing much needed additional training time on the field for our growing player base.

The field was completed end of 2017.

The Club, led in 2018 by Club President Dennis Loether, looks forward to another season of growth and success.