John Vlietstra

Welcome to Episode 17 of the Football United vs Soccer City podcast. It is a delight to have you downloading this episode of the podcast, I sincerely appreciate it. Slowly but surely this exercise of collecting the Illawarra’s oral soccer history is coming together. I encourage any of the listeners to contact me if they have any potential interviews that I should be undertaking. I am following up several leads but I am grateful if people think I should be following up additional suggested interviews.

This episode’s interviewee started his soccer journey in Holland and in his early teens he came out to Australia in 1951 with his parents. His transition into a new country and community was slightly better than his parents as he went to school and played soccer for “Tech” and the Balgownie Soccer Club in the U14s and U16s. He then went to Fernhill Soccer Club in the local league for a year and then returned to Balgownie for a few years in the State League predominantly in the reserves.

Normally this would be a very good soccer journey in itself but not for John Vlietstra who came back into the game via junior clubs (Figtree and Balgownie) and additionally on the Illawarra Junior Soccer Association committee. His time at Balgownie JSC (along with many other committee members, volunteers, sponsors and community help) brought about tremendous change to the facilities at Judy Masters, many of these changes remain today.

His next step was even bigger when he became the secretary of the Wollongong City Wolves for a decade working along side Laurie Kelly, Jack Zanier, John Fleming and many other wonderful Wolves people. After this appointment and subsequent resignation a decade later his soccer journey subsided but his community involvement and volunteering did not, being involved on the Wollongong Sportsground Trust and the Dutch Australian Society. John is a man who I deeply respect and enjoyed interviewing. It was a pleasure being around him to note down some of his experiences and again I publicly thank John for his time and knowledge. That is it for now, please enjoy this episode.

Music by Luke Nolan