FV Greater Ballarat History

The first steps into association football in Ballarat came in 1927, when a combined team entered the Madden Cup, providing Geelong teams with such quality opposition that the Ballarat club ultimately won the competition the following year, springing hope that the game would flourish in the region.

But any signs of the sport’s growth in the ensuing years are difficult to trace until after the second World War, when interest in the sport boomed, resulting in the formation of the Ballarat Soccer Association in 1952. An amalgamation with the Geelong & District Soccer League in 1963 resulted in the formation of the Ballarat/Geelong & Districts Soccer Association which ran for eleven seasons. However, the success of the Geelong teams (not one team from Ballarat would claim Championship honours) ultimately resulted in the dissolution of the merger, the split leaving the Ballarat & District Soccer Association to govern the sport in the region and surrounding areas for the best part of fifty years.

A new era beckons in 2026 as FV Greater Ballarat transforms a region now sporting twelve clubs and teams ranging from Senior Mens and Womens down to MiniRoos.

Ballarat SC 1961
A photograph of Ballarat Soccer Club in 1961. Photo courtesy of Adam Muyt.

Life Members

J Nicholson, Peg Peterson, Ken Reeves, Kingsley Curtis, Fred Maggi, Herman Bogers, Gwen Quince, Lola Pierce, Graham Smith, Neville Keen, Steve Briggs, Marilyn Tyndall, Peter Reid, Kathy Payton, Howard Wilson and Tracy Dean.

Competition Honour Roll

At present, Football Victoria is researching the history of football in regional Victoria, with particular emphasis on identifying the origins of each competition, with a view to composing an exhaustive list of League and Cup winners, to be shared early in 2026.