Key oibts
- The establishment of Nineveh Eagles
- Changing the name to Fairfield Bulls
- moving to second league
Mr Daoud talks about the history of the team, since its establishment in the early seventies last century, until today. He says the team first was formed when newly arrived Assyrian migrants started playing soccer together. Then they and started playing friendly games with another local team.
Then the team approached the AAA to get them to sponsor them and their request was approved. In 1971 application by the Assyrian Australian Association was submitted to the southern district football association, two teams were accepted under the name of the Assyrian team (in short).
"we started in 1972 with only two teams"
Team 1973 Source: AAA.jpg
Few years in the local competition, the team moved up to play in the soccer federation in 1976 to play in NSW. The teams name Assyrian was less suitable in the league.
It was asked to name it after their area. Then it was called Bonnyrigg, so the team was named Bonnyrigg Eagles. This name lasted until the early 80s when the Nineveh club was established.
In 1982 the name was changed to Nineveh Eagles because Nineveh Club was the sponsor.
A few years later, the soccer federation and under their policy, wanted the football teams to stop using ethnic names to their teams.
Juniors team 1977 Source: AAA.jpg
We started using the winge bull symbol (the right name is Lamasso Shedu meaning (the guardian angel) then we were named the Fairfield Bulls football club.
"Our success was too early for us, we were not ready for it"
Mr Daoud says in 50 years, we made a lot of progress. In 1972 we won the competition.
In 1976 when we joined the federation, we were the champions for four years, then we moved to the second division.
Throughout the years, Mr Daoud says, we were thinking about the juniors and thinking of giving them the chance to play, we established a team of under 17 in 1973. As per last year, we had 15 teams of juniors with over 300 children playing.
Team 1979 Source: AAA.jpg
Mr Daoud says our early success was the reason for our failure to advance. We were not equipped, financially, logistically, and we did not have many professional players.
At the moment, I am proud to say we have a young energetic, and enthusiastic management with big plans for the future.
As for the celebration, Mr Daoud says there will be a book published for the occasion, which will tell the history of the team with pictures of early starters and all the different teams throughout the past 50 years.
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