A telling contribution: The rise of Preston Lions under Zak Gruevski

At BT Connor Reserve, home of Preston Lions, it has not been an uncommon sight to see over 2,000 people in the stands supporting their team.

It is a typically frosty winter’s night in Melbourne on Friday, July 9.

The famous Preston Lions Football Club and its hordes of support are preparing to welcome Nunawading FC.

For the vast majority of clubs playing in the various National Premier Leagues Victoria divisions, the recent easing of Victorian Government restrictions allowing up to 1,000 spectators at games would allow them to operate matchday with minimal restrictions and fuss. Not Preston.

At BT Connor Reserve, it has not been an uncommon sight to see more than 2,000 people in the stands supporting their team.

With a spectator cap of 1,000, the Lions have needed to meticulously manage the gate, ensuring sponsors, members, spectators, players and officials check-in upon entry.

It is an administrative hassle, but it is a stark reminder of just how far Preston has come.

For that reason, the night is full of mixed emotions for outgoing Club President, Zak Gruevski.

Having announced the end of his presidency at the club – a reign that lasted over seven years – it provides an opportunity to reflect on just how far the club has come, as well as the important strides forward the Lions still hope to make.

“Like most, I didn’t go to President’s school,” Gruevski said.

“The journey really started from a call out to the community to say that Preston was in some deep trouble.

“At the time, they really weren’t that far off putting the padlock on the front gate and sadly saying goodbye to an iconic club.”

Towards the back end of 2013, Preston was a world away from the relative heights it enjoys now.

Ladened with over $200,000 in debt, mainly to the Australian Tax Office, undermined by terrible infrastructure and suffering from the consequential lack of juniors at the club, the glory days of Victorian Premier League success in 2007 felt like an age ago, much less the golden era of the National Soccer League in the 80s and early 90s.

Prior to his own presidency, Gruevski – who before becoming President of Preston served on the board of Football Victoria – explained that the work of his predecessor, Zoran Trajceski, was crucial to giving the club something of a blank slate to build from.

“Zoran was a bit of a figurehead. He galvanized a number of people behind him to say, ‘hey, let’s not allow our club to fall by the wayside,’” he said.

“That took us to a position where there was a fundraising sub-committee established and they set out to clear the club’s debt.

“My brother was heavily involved in that group, and he’d often ask why I was on the Federation board, however for me that was a great learning experience and helped me understand the business of football and how it works as an administrator.

“I was a lifelong supporter of Preston and I always remembered going to the games as a kid and I now found myself in a position where I was able to give a bit back to the club from a time perspective.

“So I joined the committee that year.”

In 2014, the club was able to announce that it had cleared its debt with the ATO and at the end of that year, Trajceski stepped down handing the reins over to Gruevski and a new committee.

With a new committee elected at the 2014 Annual General Meeting, Gruevski took on the role of Presidency with gusto, seeing the election of a new breed of committee for the club as the perfect opportunity to try and start fresh.

One of the first issues he wanted to tackle was the ‘seniors-first’ mentality.

“The senior men’s side are the flagship team, but they’re only one team of 23 or 25 or however many teams we’re fielding in any given year,” Gruevski said.

“Whilst they’re important, there’s a broader picture about the club and we’ve had some great kids and great women who have come through our club.

“When we took over, we literally only had 35 kids registered at the club making up three junior teams.

“The facilities were poor… we had two half pitches of lighting for our juniors, the lighting on the main pitch was disgusting to the point it was dangerous for the players even for training.

“Why would anyone want to come to the club?”

As a committee member first and then a President, Gruevski admitted that at times it was hard to look any more than one year ahead.

Many of those first years were simply just about surviving, being competitive on the pitch from a senior’s perspective and just battling through.

However, with the debt cleared and some breathing space achieved, Gruevski wanted to begin looking beyond the short-term fixes.

“With this new committee and the assistance of some trusted advisors, we wanted to stabilize and formulate a five-year plan for 2015-2020 to set the tone for where we wanted to go.”

And the plan centred around one keyword – hope.

“We wanted to give people hope,” he said.

“And we knew we could only do that by doing three things. One, we needed to bring people with professional skillsets to the club. We had to demonstrate to our sponsors, members, players and supporters that we had and were bringing quality people to the club.

“Secondly, we had to address the mistrust. We had to establish trust and transparency and for us was key.

“From that first AGM, it was important to us to be able to say to our members, ‘look, here are our books, this is what we’ve inherited, and this is the reality.’ We got the books audited and we invited any question anyone wanted to ask.

“And thirdly, we had to have a plan. It wasn’t good enough to say here’s a problem and ask members how we should fix it. We had to show them that we were working on solutions.

“That helped to show that we had integrity and helped to build that reputation and that trust again, and I think we’ve been able to sustain that over a number of years.”

The five-year plan for Preston wanted to inspire hope in its supporter base, and it did so by focusing on three key pillars – Facilities, Community and Communication.

Gruevski encouraged open communication between him, his committee and Preston’s members & supporters.

“In the first year or so it was a lot of just listening to people. I’m happy to hear anyone’s views,” he said.

“But if there was one thing that frustrated me, it was the negativity. I used to tell people, ‘I know the history, I know where we’re coming from isn’t great.’

“But for me, it was about where can we go? Any time someone told me something negative, I’d ask them to think about something positive that they could think about, or to give me an idea that they thought would make things better.

“We took all those ideas and threw them into the mix as part of formulating our plan. I wanted to treat people fairly and bring in proper governance structures and processes.”

What was clear to Gruevski, however, was that whilst communication was important, particularly in the early days, the real strides forward that needed to be made were with the former two pillars of facilities and communication.

“We saw that the facilities were poor, and we knew we wanted to be able to bring people back to the club,” he said.

“You can do that with success on the field, but the other way and the more sustainable way is to bring life to your club through the MiniRoos and juniors programs.

“We set out in year one to grow from the 35 and we grew our numbers to 80. In year two we grew to 180 and the third year we ended up with around 280 kids, which we’ve maintained and grown to almost 400 registered players between Miniroos, juniors and seniors men and women.”

As participation grew, the need for vast improvements to the facilities at BT Connor Reserve became more and more apparent.

“People didn’t want to come to the club. They’d tell us the facilities were poor, or they’d say our reputation wasn’t very good,” Gruevski recalled.

“Even me, before I was president, I wanted to bring my son to Preston when he was five or six, but the club didn’t have any programs for kids his age back then.

“He didn’t come back until he was 10 or 11.”

Gruevski adds making appointments such as junior co-ordinators and working with the City of Darebin for improved facilities was crucial.

It is in securing investment from council that Preston has really excelled in recent years.

“If you look at what they’ve invested in our facilities, it’s upwards of $5-6 million in five or six years,” he said.

“That’s gone towards new lighting, upgrades to pitches and new fencing and a new state of the art pavilion that is currently under construction. That fencing, in particular, we used to joke and say that when we got rid of the fence we got rid of the remnants of Pentridge Prison.

“The fencing was a 1.5m or 2m high. It was disgusting. How are you meant to welcome families and people to that sort of environment? It was a hangover from a previous era.”

Many might read that and wonder, how on earth has a suburban soccer club managed to win that much investment from council?

For Gruevski, the answer is simple, even if its execution is not.

“You’ve got give them a reason to invest,” he said.

“You’ve got to be able to clearly explain what your vision is, what you want to achieve.

“As a club, we engaged with blind football, the indigenous community, women’s football and we were able to demonstrate this to Council.

“We actually went to Council and our Councillors and presented our five-year plan to them. We showed them our collective – ours as a club and theirs as a Council – responsibility to our local community and improving access to sport.

“And to do that, we needed help to improve our facilities.

“You can’t ask me and my club to grow our participation base, if we don’t have anywhere to put the kids, or if it’s so dark that it’s dangerous.”

Consistent engagement was key.

“We engaged with Council officers, the CEO and Councillors because at the end of the day we needed to give them reasons to invest in our club and our sport.

“We were persistent, too. If we missed out on a grant one year, that was fine, we’d come back next year and we’d tell them again, this is what we want to do, this is why we want to do it and then we’d back that up with our numbers.

“We didn’t want to be whingers and whiners. We wanted to present professionally and I think they took notice of that approach. They wanted to work with us.”

With improved facilities and a growing junior base, Gruevski and Preston’s attention turned to on-field success, as the Lions sought to rise to a level more befitting of their historic status in the game and their growing present-day fortunes.

Of course, in the quagmire that is State League One North-West, that’s easier said than done, even with the impressive resources and support the club managed to generate.

Preston championed a proactive approach to member communication using the club’s digital channels, specifically social media, to encourage a new breed of fan to their games.

“We made a commitment to being really strong on social media,” he said.

“This was how we were going to communicate with our people. The old days of putting a story in the Macedonian newspaper were done, social media was a gamechanger for us.

“It helped us encourage people back to the club, whether it be as sponsors, as members or just to come to the odd game. The younger generation really took it on.

“These days they feel like they’re going to miss out on something if they don’t come to a game, so they would come down and come to a game.”

Even in State League One, crowds at BT Connor Reserve were often closer to 1,000 than they were to 500.

Not that it made life any easier in the division.

It took five years for Gruevski to realise his on-field vision of seeing Preston make the jump from State League One to NPL3.

The Lions finished second in the division in 2016, fourth in 2017 and missed out on promotion on the final day of the season in 2018 in front of almost 4,000 home fans, before eventually being crowned champions in 2019.

“Getting out of that league was extremely difficult,” he said.

“In some respects, we’re finding NPL3 a bit easier to manage than State One.

“When we lost that game in 2018, it brought many of us to tears. We were that close, and we lost it at the end. We had supporters at training in the lead up to that game. It was massive.

“But that disappointment was a turning point for us because it drove us to the championship in 2019.”

Gruevski makes no hesitation in crediting coach Louie Acevski for much of the on-field transformation of the club.

“He came to the club because of the vision we had and what we wanted to achieve,” Gruevski said.

“He’d just finished with Hume City, and he wasn’t interested in coaching again in a hurry. I just reached out to him and shared with him what we wanted to do, the people we had as part of our team and we were able to get him on board and that was the start of the way forward for the club on the pitch.”

And success on the park in 2019 has propelled success off it. Not even the loss of the 2020 season could slow Preston down.

With their brand new lighting on the main pitch, Preston took the decision to play home games on Friday nights at BT Connor Reserve, and their first game under lights was marked by a historic turnout.

Thousands of supporters attended the game and Gruevski was keen to note the ethnic diversity of the club’s supporter base.

“The response from day one to Friday nights has been superb,” he said.

“For the first time in several years since I’ve been involved, kids are starting to talk about the club on a Wednesday or Thursday night at training or at school about whether or not they’re going to Preston on Friday.

“We’ve connected with the broader community. Obviously, everyone knows that the club was founded and is traditionally supported by Macedonian immigrants and their families.

“But we’ve been super proud that we’ve been able to engage really well with the local community as well. We currently have 24 different nationalities at our club.

“That’s something we’re super proud of.”

As part of their registration fees, all MiniRoos and junior parents get a free season pass enabling entry to senior men’s games, which has also helped encourage greater attendance at Friday night games.

Of the thousands who attended the season opener against Melbourne City, this included more than 120 sponsors and invited guests at the club’s newly launched Preston in Business program.

On the night, they defeated Melbourne City’s academy team 2-1 in an absolute thriller.

It was the perfect debut for the club’s new sponsorship program, which has driven enormous financial support for the club.

“We really want to look at how we can help our sponsors grow as well,” he said.

“But it’s grown because sponsors have confidence in where their money is going and they know we’re creating opportunities for them as well.”

Whilst Gruevski is departing the role of President, he has been keen to impress that operationally, nothing will change.

“It’s business as usual,” he said.

“Even though I’m finishing up in this role, we have the same Treasurer (now elevated to the role of Chief Financial Officer), the Vice President [David Cvetkovski] is now the President, and co-Vice Presidents have been introduced, with the balance of the Executive Committee remaining committed as always.”

Gruevski’s role at the club will see him move onto the club’s Advisory Board, where he will champion the club’s efforts on a number of key projects including securing a junior boys NPL licence and continuing to be involved in National Second Division discussions.

“I’ve got the relationships and I’ve represented the club in these forums before, so I’m happy to continue working on anything that sees the club get stronger.

“It would be a shame for us to walk away completely from something we’ve helped build.

“We’re proud of what we’ve done, but we know there’s still a lot to be done and I’m still passionate about helping the club achieve that.”

Feature and body image credit: Matt Johnson

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Preston Lions Land Funding for Synthetic Field Upgrade

The Preston Lions Football Club are set to receive long-overdue upgrades to B.T. Connor Reserve, thanks to the re-election of the Albanese Labor Government.

Back in April, Preston Lions shared that Hon Ged Kearney, the Federal Member for Cooper, had pledged $1.5 million as part of an election promise to help fund a new synthetic pitch on Ground 4 at B.T. Connor Reserve.

The Preston Lions Football Club is one of the biggest clubs in Melbourne’s north, however, the pitch is currently in a state that presents challenges for regular play, and the grounds appear to have gone some time without significant upkeep.

Now that the Albanese Labor Government has been re-elected and Ged Kearney has retained her seat in the Cooper Electorate, the long-awaited upgrades are finally set to become a reality.

Ged Kearney highlighted how important the club is to the community, offering programs for people of all ages.

“The Preston Lions Football Club is one of the largest sporting clubs in Melbourne’s north and offers amazing programs for everyone from toddlers through to teenagers and mums,” Hon Kearney said in a press release.

“The club does amazing work, and I am so pleased to be able to announce that a re-elected Albanese Labor Government would deliver this upgrade for our community to enjoy well into the future.”

Preston Lions President David Cvetkovski expressed his excitement, saying the upgrades have been long time coming.

“The program is growing, we’re close to 500 kids, I think I’ve been tapping on Ged’s door, Nathan’s door, council’s door for five or six years,” Mr Cvetkovski told Soccerscene.

“We’re looking forward to what will effectively be a 1.5-million-dollar grant from federal for a 2-million-dollar upgrade of what we call ground 4, into a purpose-built synthetic ground, drainage, paths, the pavilion and everything upgraded, it’s really exciting for the kids.

“The future is here, and we need to ensure we’re providing the facilities to maybe produce the next Matilda or Socceroo.”

The long-awaited upgrades will mark a major step forward for the Preston Lions, ensuring the club can continue to grow, support its community, and inspire the next generation of Australian football talent.

Exclusive Interview With Football Path X’s Azur Omerovic: “Football Path X Will Digitally Revolutionise The Footballing World”

The Football Path X team (Image provided by Azur Omerovic)

Football Path X recently hit the app store internationally, building on the connectivity of potential players from amateur to professional with clubs around the world.

Azur Omerovic has been one of key members of the Football Path X (FPX) team through its recent growth.

As head of partnerships, Azur sat down with Soccerscene to talk about the exciting journey of the company and the plans they hold for Football Path X’s future.

How did Football Path X come about?

Azur Omerovic: It all started with our CEO Rajan Zejnuni, he travelled with his wife Naava Garreth, to her home country of Uganda. For most of Africans, football is way out of poverty. Same can be seen in South America such as Brazil, though the scale and communication logistics for players with footballing ambitions is a big obstacle. Especially in the largest and most competitive footballing continent, Europe.

Rajan had talked with players and coaches who shared how difficult is to find a club locally and how much they struggle when it comes to international showcasing. Their players were left behind unless they were rich and very well connected. The players used Instagram, TikTok and YouTube to try and showcase their skills but there was little evidence of success by using these general forms of social media. FPX centralises all activities and game opportunity to individuals so it can tell complete stories about themselves and achieve, not just local, but international reach.

How did you personally get involved?

Azur Omerovic: I have played and coached at a good level before and know a lot about football. I have also had a lot of experience in business development and partnerships. I got in contact with Rajan after he published his first promo video on Facebook and announced MPV to go live. Since we both share similar values and passion, we decided to continue building FPX together.

Also in our team is my sister Amila Omerovic who is head of Player Development at FPX and has played professionally in the US and represented Croatia. Eldan Alomerovic, a brilliant designer whose creativity makes our ideas come to life, ensuring a seamless and visually stunning user experience. Assem Ragab, our Product Manager, is an IT professional and has worked in some of the biggest IT Companies such as Oracle, IBM, SAP, Meta and Tesla, at these companies he developed several products and in FPX Assem oversees product commercialisation and gamification.

So what is Football Path X and what gives it the advantage in this competitive market?

Azur Omerovic: The market is flooded with apps for individuals who can afford spending around $17 AUD a month (€10), and even then, there is little value since the major problems are not solved on a large scale. FPX is not just a mobile app – The mobile app is our first product and next year we will be publishing other digital products. This will create a set of services and products that make us a platform where all football life circles for each individual and entity (club, league) is covered.

A central part is the social part, or how people interact. FPX is huge step towards providing digital football solutions for all players and staff of clubs, equipping them with cutting-edge technology to enhance their skills, increase their visibility, and connect with the global football community and our rapidly growing platform.

Football Path X logo. (Image supplied by Azur Omerovic)

What is the premium package of club management?

Azur Omerovic: For this upgrade it will be built around a club dynamic. We digitalise all football activities: Staff management, event tracking e.g. Match scheduling and tracking, training scheduling and coach-player feedback including statistical aspect of players, coaches, team and club performance. Clubs will gain complete overview of all activities and eliminate unstructured communication which consumes so much time, and this communication can be held directly, via WhatsApp and even recorded with pen and paper.

We can help digitalise clubs, which will include expert insights into training techniques and club issues from field professionals both at FPX and through over users in the App. The platform will be a football marketplace where experts and rising football stars meet, exchange knowledge and professionals can offer their services. Coaches, Scouts, Agents and other professionals like Psychologists will have their place and role on our platform.

Part of the Club Management option is a marketing package which enables clubs to interact with fans via sharing material generated in the app. Fans will get real time results and stay up to date with the club’s news like live scores or announcements. Club Management is an important brick in building this bridge, the bridge that connects demand and needs.

Features of Football Path X. (Image supplied by Azur Omerovic)

What is going to be the process to get clubs onto the premium package of club management?

Azur Omerovic: We have strong football network that includes around 1500 coaches around the world who have personal and professional relationships with our team and our partners. Product will be presented to them, and we believe that their leagues will get involved with our concept as well, since no one wants to stay behind. Of course, we will reach out to clubs if we notice high number of players who use the platform for personal purposes.

We are also invited to The World Football Summit which will take place in Madrid this Autumn. From this we will get direct connection with the biggest football organisations like FIFA and UEFA. This event will be the showcase for our official Club Management announcement.

Who can join Football Path X and Is there a targeted consumer?

Azur Omerovic: Though professionals are welcome to the app, 99% of footballers are amateur, semi-professional and veteran players. We believe that these players are the key. A lot of lower level clubs have the funds or ability of professional structures. So, we can offer them a system with low price and good quality. Academies are also the perfect centre for FPX to connect upcoming players in these programs to explore opportunities.

As FPX is solely football focused, parents can help manage their kids careers and represent them until they are mature enough to take over their accounts. FPX also allows their kids to get the app to communicate in a footballing environment and not get overwhelmed by the other aspects of the mainstream social media apps out there.

Only 6% of all players right now are women, we match this in our own statistics as well, with Amila Omerovic as head of Football Development it’s a central focus of FPX to increase this number.

Has Football Path X been interested in the Australian market? 

Azur Omerovic: Football is developing in Australia and 10 football clubs from Australia use the current free version already. It’s a sport that is expanding professionally but has an extensive semi-pro and amateur presence. Australia is also a digitalised country, so people don’t have an issue with using apps for communication and it integrates well into the Australian way of life.

For us it’s a huge market to get into and can be a huge advantage for most of the Australian footballing community. Since the publicity of the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup the Women’s football market has exploded in Australia and is an exciting development for us.

How have you been engaged in the Australian Market?

Azur Omerovic: Football Path X is proud to announce a groundbreaking partnership with Australasian Soccer Academy from Sydney. At the heart of this collaboration is Tony Basha, the Chairman of Australasian Soccer Academy. His passion for football, his club and the community has deeply resonated with us. Regardless of gender or age, it is a great opportunity for all.

Tony and his academy are a respected and known academy in Europe and internationally. A true visionary, Tony recognises the power of technology in elevating football talent and has been instrumental in fostering this partnership. We are delighted to work alongside him and look forward to a long-lasting relationship that will transform football in Australia.

We encourage all players and clubs in Australia to get the app and contribute to the growing community.

Tony Basha CEO of The Australasian Football Academy (Image provided by Azur Omerovic)
Tony Basha CEO of The Australasian Football Academy. (Image provided by Azur Omerovic).

How is Football Path X currently tracking?

Azur Omerovic: More than 2500 players and coaches from 120 clubs use our app even though we are just around 5 months on the market. Based on the last few weeks of the growth rate, we expect to hit the 100 000 user mark by the end of the year.

Late last year FPX team had the annual Web summit in Lisbon, where we connected to similar organisations in the digital and footballing industry. We were even approached by some famous football clubs including Atletico Madrid and Benfica.

The FPX team are keen to develop these relationships and adapt them into the app experience.

What does the future hold for Football Path X?

Azur Omerovic: The Management premium package first phase of the app is out now. We will go live early in July with a Beta version and finalise it until 1st of September. We are based primarily in Europe, with our central office in Vienna, Austria. So, Europe will continue to be a base of operations and our app’s primary focus for opportunities.

For the app to grow however, we are keen to keep pushing the app in the Australian market and expand to get more partners in South America, The US and to all countries. We already have users from 146 countries in the world.

We are driven to have FPX be the app that can connect the footballing world from the most amateur to the highest professional players, academies and clubs.

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