Hellenic FC is a South African

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is t ...

club based in

Cape Town Cape Town ( af, Kaapstad; , xh, iKapa) is one of South Africa's three capital cities, serving as the seat of the Parliament of South Africa. It is the legislative capital of the country, the oldest city in the country, and the second larges ...

. They were nicknamed ''The Greek Gods''. Established in 1958 by

Greek South Africans Greek South Africans are South Africans of Greek ancestry from Greece and Cyprus. The Greek population in South Africa is estimated to be around 120,000. Notable people *George Bizos – human rights lawyer who campaigned against apartheid; ...

, Hellenic campaigned in the lower amateur leagues of Cape Town. But by the 1970s they were one of the leading teams in the country and regularly pulled in crowds of more than 20,000. They were champions in 1971 and runners-up in 1972 and 1975. Hellenic reached the final of the

Cup competition A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final matc ...

then widely known as ''Castle Cup'' in 1976, losing 2–0 to

Cape Town City A cape is a clothing accessory or a sleeveless outer garment which drapes the wearer's back, arms, and chest, and connects at the neck. History Capes were common in medieval Europe, especially when combined with a Hood (headgear), hood in t ...

. In 1994 Hellenic lost the final of the NSL/PSL League Cup, then known as ''Coca-Cola Cup'', losing to

QwaQwa Stars Free State Stars Football club is a South African professional football club based in Bethlehem, Free State that plays in the National First Division. Formerly known as Makwane Computer Stars and Qwa Qwa Stars, their most significant honour i ...

2–3 after extra time. In 1972 Hellenic attracted a number of German internationals who were barred from playing in clubs associated with FIFA due to their involvement in a match fixing scandal. In early 2004, the club's franchise was sold by the Greek owners to the Ndlovu family who renamed it

Premier United Thanda Royal Zulu was a South African football club based in Richards Bay, KwaZulu-Natal. History The club started after a Swedish consortium that included Sven-Goran Eriksson bought the franchise from Benoni Premier United at the end of the 2006 ...

and moved it to

Benoni, Gauteng Benoni is a town in Ekurhuleni municipality, Gauteng, South Africa. Benoni was also the setting for the MTV-inspired movie ''Crazy Monkey: Straight Outta Benoni'', released internationally in 2005. People from Benoni * Urzila Carlson, New Zeal ...

, which was renamed to ''Thanda Royal Zulu FC'' in 2007. In 2011, the Hellenic franchise took over the former Blaauwberg City FC, under the management of Mark Byrne. Byrne is looking to revive the quality of the 1970s, to become one of the best youth developments in the country. In 2013, the club acquired a SAB League franchise (South African 4th Division). In August 2016, the club announced that they had sold their

SAFA Second Division The ABC Motsepe League, previously known as the Vodacom League between 1998 and 2012, was founded in 1998 as the current Second Division and the overall third tier of South African football. The competition is regulated by SAFA, and until 2012 ...

franchise to "achieving our aim to be the number one youth structure in Cape Town." Formerly at home at the

Green Point Stadium The Green Point Stadium in Cape Town, South Africa was a multi-purpose sports stadium. Opened in 1897, it had a concrete banked cycle track, also occasionally used for motorsport, with a lap distance of a third of a mile - - and inside the ...

, Hellenic's base these days is the Tygerhof Milnerton.

Honours

* National Championship (NFL): 1971 ** Runners-up: 1972, 1975 * Cup (NFL) ** Runners-up: 1976 * UTC Bowl: 1972 ** Runners-up: 1971 * NSL/PSL League Cup ** Runners-up: 1994

Notable personnel

;Players *

Wilf de Bruin Wilf is a masculine given name, most commonly a diminutive form of Wilfred or Wilfrid. It is also a nickname and a surname. People Given name * Wilfred Arthur (1919–2000), Australian World War II fighter ace * Wilf Barber (1901–1968), Englis ...

(1970–1983/194 goals) *

Dale Liesching Dale or dales may refer to: Locations * Dale (landform), an open valley * Dale (place name element) Geography ;Australia *The Dales (Christmas Island), in the Indian Ocean ;Canada *Dale, Ontario ;Ethiopia * Dale (woreda), district ;Norway * ...

(1975 – 1982/86 goals) *

Sergio Dos Santos Sergio dos Santos (born 1950) is a retired South African footballer who played as a midfielder for Hellenic, Cape Town Spurs and Kaizer Chiefs. He also managed Kaizer Chiefs for a spell in the mid-1990s. Early life He was born to Portugues ...

(1968–1976) *

George Eastham George Edward Eastham, OBE (born 23 September 1936) is an English former footballer. He is known for playing for Newcastle United, Arsenal and Stoke City, as well as a member of England's 1966 World Cup-winning squad. However, he is also notab ...

(1971–1972/Player of the Year 1971) *

Volkmar Groß Volkmar Groß (31 January 1948 – 3 July 2014) was a German professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He spent seven seasons in the Bundesliga with Hertha BSC, Tennis Borussia Berlin and FC Schalke 04. He represented Germany once ...

(1972) *

Roger Hunt Roger Hunt (20 July 1938 – 27 September 2021) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward. Eleven years with Liverpool, he was the club's record goalscorer with 286 goals until being overtaken by Ian Rush. Nonetheless, Hu ...

(1971) *

Arno Steffenhagen Arno Steffenhagen (born 24 September 1949) is a German retired professional footballer who played as a striker for clubs in Germany, South Africa, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada, making nearly 400 career league appearances and s ...

(1972) *

Bernd Patzke Bernd Patzke (born 14 March 1943) is a German former football player and manager. The defender was twice a squad member of the West Germany national team for FIFA World Cup tournaments: 1966 in England and 1970 in Mexico. Altogether he won ...

(1973) *

Ian St John John "Ian" St John (; 7 June 1938 – 1 March 2021) was a Scottish professional football player, coach and broadcaster. St John played as a forward for Liverpool throughout most of the 1960s. Signed by Bill Shankly in 1961, St John was a key m ...

(1971) * Richard Anderson (Ziggy) (1969–1971) ;Coaches *

Budgie Byrne John Joseph Byrne (13 May 1939 – 27 October 1999) was an English professional footballer who played as a striker. He was nicknamed "Budgie" due to his constant chattering. He played non-league football for Epsom Town and Guildford City You ...

(1970s–80s) *

Bruce Grobbelaar Bruce David Grobbelaar (born 6 October 1957) is a Zimbabwean former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper, most prominently for English team Liverpool between 1981 and 1994, and for the Zimbabwean national team. He is remembered fo ...

(2001) *

Ian Towers Ian Joseph Towers (11 October 1940 – 25 January 2015) was an English professional footballer who played as a forward in the Football League for Burnley, Oldham Athletic and Bury and in South Africa for Cape Town City and Hellenic. He a ...

(1982–1985) * Zoran Pešić (2002)

Premier Soccer League record

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, disintegrated during reentry into Atmosphere of Earth, Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an 2002– ...

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 60 ...

– 15th *

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains independence from Indonesia and ...

– 14th *

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

– 16th *

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from ...

– 14th *

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school s ...

– 8th *

1998 1998 was designated as the ''International Year of the Ocean''. Events January * January 6 – The ''Lunar Prospector'' spacecraft is launched into orbit around the Moon, and later finds evidence for frozen water, in soil in permanently s ...

– 12th *

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; ''Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

– 10th *

1996 File:1996 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: A bomb explodes at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, set off by a radical anti-abortionist; The center fuel tank explodes on TWA Flight 800, causing the plane to crash and killing everyone on b ...

– 4th

Link

A collection of Hellenic Football Club photographs
* Ian King, Josef Bobrowsky:

',

Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...

, 25 February 2001

References

{{original Premier Soccer League clubs Association football clubs established in 1958 Association football clubs disestablished in 2004 Defunct soccer clubs in South Africa Soccer clubs in Cape Town National Football League (South Africa) clubs 1958 establishments in South Africa 2004 disestablishments in South Africa Diaspora sports clubs

Honours

Notable personnel

Premier Soccer League record

See also

Link

References