In episode eight of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch podcast, South Melbourne FC President Nick Maikousis joins the show to talk about his role and experience at the club.
South Melbourne Football Club is an Australian semi-professional soccer club that currently competes in the National Premier Leagues Victoria.
Maikousis has served as president of South Melbourne FC since taking on the role at the end of 2018.
On the podcast, Maikousis shared his journey from serving as a board member of the club to eventually taking on the role of president.
“So I joined the board in about 91, or probably a little later than that, but thereabouts and I was working in Adelaide briefly for a period of time when we came back to Melbourne and decided to get involved,” he said.
“I became vice president relatively quickly and I had a lot of success at the time, Ange was our senior coach, our manager and I was vice president and we had some wonderful, wonderful times during that period.
“And then reconnected with the club after a few years when my son got his license and was taking himself to training, which freed me up and got involved again and fast forward many, many years, I’ve been president now for about 7 or 8 years I think it is, so it’s been a long journey.”
Maikousis also reflected on South Melbourne FC’s transition from the National Soccer League (NSL) to the Victorian Premier League (VPL).
“It was difficult for the club at the time, I had been out of the picture for about a year or so at that stage, although I was still following the club, I wasn’t actively involved at board level, but I was certainly part of the process to try and save the club again,” he said.
“Because right until late in the picture, South was very much considered to be part of the A- League moving forward, It was only towards the end of that process I think the board realised it wasn’t going to be part of it so there was a lot of last minute decision making that took place.
“Clubs like South and Knights, who were trying to get back in there (VPL) from the NSL, found it difficult.
“Again, I wasn’t heavily involved at board level, or in the management level at the time, but it wasn’t easy, we were losing a lot of players to lots of other clubs.”
To learn more about his role at South Melbourne FC, listen to the full interview with Nick Maikousis on episode eight of Soccerscene’s Off the Pitch Podcast – available on all major podcasting apps.
