Adelaide Juventus legend Nilo Rusalen excelled in four sports, a feat which was common in the post World War II years
Soccer star Nilo Rusalen recalls the day he beat SANFL legend Bob Shearman in a bike race at the Norwood Velodrome.
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It was a snapshot of South Australian sport after World War II — Adelaide Juventus legend Nilo Rusalen racing and beating SANFL Sturt icon Bob Shearman in a bike race at the defunct Norwood Velodrome.
Many of South Australia’s greatest athletes played and dominated more than one sport.
SA Sports Hall of Famers John Halbert and Barrie Robran, who were state cricketers while winning Margarey Medals as league football best and fairest. Port Adelaide’s Craig Bradley was also a state cricketer and Port Adelaide Magpies league footballer before being lured by Carlton to the AFL where he went on to become a legend with the Blues.
Rusalen, 80, excelled in four sports, soccer, cycling, Australian rules football and boxing — virtually unheard of today — after the Italian immigrant started a brand new life in Australia when he was 11 in 1950.
Rusalen claims winning the bike race for a 1965 charity which featured SA Football Hall of Famer Shearman, SANFL legends Gary Window, John Cahill and Lindsay Head never got the publicity he thought it deserved.
“Bob Shearman and I, we were best of mates,’’ Rusalen said.
“He was really good on a bike but I beat him fair and square, I reckon because of that, a soccer player beating a (SANFL) football star, they didn’t run a story about it.”
Rusalen, who settled in Mildura with his family in 1950, was forced to take up Australian rules football, boxing, cricket and tennis because the regional city in northwestern Victoria didn’t have a soccer team.
Rusalen said Victorian police officers taught him how to box in a bid to stop him being bullied at school and claimed he knocked out an Australian Olympic boxer during his journey in the ring.
Rusalen also turned out to be a handy Australian rules footballer for Irymple’s under-18s and was a Sunraysia representative in 1955 and 1956 before moving to Adelaide.
He shifted with the intention of returning to Italy to become a professional road cyclist.
However his love soccer came to the fore again - a game which he left behind as a kid in northern Italy.
He was picked up by Adelaide Juventus, a powerhouse with four consecutive SA first division titles in a 69-game unbeaten run.
Rusalen was also offered a contract from Italy’s Venezia in the Serie A before playing for Pan Hellenic (Sydney Olympic), Polonia (Croydon Kings), Elizabeth (Playford City as a player/coach and Raiders (Adelaide Croatia). He represented SA in soccer 12 times.
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