Bentleigh Greens

John Anastasiadis spent eight years in the Bentleigh Greens dugout, from 2011 to 2019, winning the state championship three times, in 2015, 2017 and 2019.

The club exists because a Greek-Cypriot community in Melbourne wanted a team of its own. Ray Georgiou and Michael Christopher gathered 150 founding members in 1986, bought the league place off Greensborough SC and moved the side to Cheltenham, keeping the green but renaming the club Bentleigh Greens. Savvas Kourea took the first presidency, ran the club from 1989 to 1997, and later secured the purchase of Kingston Heath Soccer Complex, the ground the team still calls home; he stayed connected to the club until his death in 2023. Georgiou now chairs it.

Promotion arrived in 1995. Relegation followed in 2005, reversed by 2009, and the club lifted the Dockerty Cup in 2016 against Green Gully, in 2018, and again in 2022, when Yaqub Mustafa's goal beat Oakleigh Cannons 2-1. The 2019 championship needed penalties to settle, Avondale beaten 4-3 after the sides had drawn 1-1.