Essendon Royals Soccer Club is an Australian semi-professional

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

club based in the North-Western

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

of Moonee Valley. The club's senior men's squad currently participates in the

Victoria Premier League 2 The Victorian Premier League (VPL) is an Australian soccer league based in Victoria that was founded in 2023 and administered by Football Victoria. It consists of two divisions that were named after the VPL's breakaway of the National Premier Le ...

, following promotion from

Victorian State League 1 The Victorian State League, known as VETO Sports State League for sponsorship purposes is an Australian soccer league based in Victoria that was founded in 1958 and administered by Football Victoria. It consists of five divisions (separated by t ...

in 2022. The senior women's squad compete in Victoria Women's State League Division 1 North-West.

History

The club was originally founded as Unione Sportiva Triestina in 1959 by

Italian immigrants The Italian diaspora (, ) is the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy. There were two major Italian diasporas in Italian history. The first diaspora began around 1880, two decades after the Unification of Italy, and ended in the 1920s ...

from the seaport city of

Trieste Trieste ( , ; ) is a city and seaport in northeastern Italy. It is the capital and largest city of the Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Friuli-Venezia Giulia, as well as of the Province of Trieste, ...

. Prior to the 1995 season, the club had completed its last merge of four merges, with six other original stand-alone clubs to form 'Essendon-Brunswick Royals', later renaming to its present name Essendon Royals for the 1999 season. The club had two stints in the

Victorian Premier League The Victorian Premier League (VPL) is an Australian soccer league based in Victoria that was founded in 2023 and administered by Football Victoria. It consists of two divisions that were named after the VPL's breakaway of the National Premier L ...

(VPL), the second highest level in Australian soccer, in 2001 and from 2003–07. The club has a current membership over 700 and currently fields teams in junior boys and girls leagues from 8 years to seniors. In August 2019, the club was granted a

National Premier Leagues Victoria The National Premier Leagues Victoria (NPL Victoria or NPL VIC) is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer league syst ...

junior licence for its u13 to u16 teams. Vitale Ferrante was appointed as the club's senior men's coach for the 2020 season. After the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

resulted in the cancellation of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, Essendon Royals achieved promotion from Men's State League 1 North-West to

National Premier Leagues Victoria 3 The National Premier Leagues Victoria (NPL Victoria or NPL VIC) is a semi-professional soccer league in Victoria, Australia. The league is a part of the National Premier Leagues, and is the highest level within the Victorian soccer league syste ...

in the 2022 season. Earlier in the year, Vitale Ferrante stepped away from the head coach job, with his brother

Michael Ferrante Michael Ferrante (born 28 April 1981) is an Australian former footballer. He is currently the senior men's head coach of Essendon Royals SC. Biography He attended St. Joseph's College Melbourne from years 1992–1997 being a star week in wee ...

, an ex-professional footballer and until then player at the Royals since mid-2019, took over the manager role.

Historical honours (1958–1994)

Anstey Roma (1968–1969)

* Victorian Sixth Tier :Premiers (1): 1968 (Central)

Central Brunswick/Dallas City/Ivanhoe City (1973–1987)

* Victorian Eighth Tier :Premiers (1): 1984 *Victorian Eleventh Tier :Premiers (1): 1977

East Brunswick (1970–1986)

* Victorian Sixth Tier :Third Place ''(promotion)'' (1): 1983 * Victorian Seventh Tier :Premiers (2): 1972 (East), 1975 (East)

East Brunswick–Ivanhoe (1988–1994)

* Victorian Fourth Tier :Runners–up (1): 1991 * Victorian Fifth Tier :Premiers (1): 1990

Fiorentina (1958–1963)

* Victorian Second Tier :Runners–up (2): 1961, 1963 * Victorian Third Tier :Runners–up (1): 1959

Moonee Ponds (1973–1982)

*Victorian Tenth Tier :Third Place ''(promotion)'' (1): 1977

Unione Sportiva Triestina/Maribyrnong Triestina/Essendon City Jets (1958–1994)

* Victorian Second Tier :Premiers (1): 1963 :Runners–up (1): 1986 * Victorian Third Tier :Premiers (1): 1962 * Victorian Fourth Tier :Runners–up (1): 1985 * Victorian Fifth Tier :Premiers (1): 1973 :Runners–up (1): 1976 :Third Place ''(promotion)'' (1): 1983

Recent honours (1995–present)

* Victorian Second Tier :Runners–up (2): 2000, 2002 * Victorian Third Tier :Runners–up (1): 1999 * Victorian Fourth Tier :Runners–up (2): 2016 (North–West), 2022 (North–West) * Victorian Fifth Tier :Premiers (1): 2014 (North–West) * Victorian Seventh Tier :Runners–up (1): 2011

References

External links

Essendon Royals SC (official website)Football Federation Victoria (official website)
{{AUS fb state Vic Soccer clubs in Melbourne Victorian Premier League Italian-Australian culture in Melbourne Italian-Australian backed sports clubs of Victoria (state) Association football clubs established in 1959 1959 establishments in Australia Essendon, Victoria Sport in the City of Moonee Valley