Junior Sports Star: Club president volunteered time to soccer for almost 30 years

ST MARYS Soccer Club president Joe Youssef has been told he’s got green blood running through his veins. He agrees.

Service to Sport nominee Joe Youssef has spent decades showing his love for Marys Soccer Club. Picture: Justin Sanson

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JOE Youssef is familiar to anyone who knows anything about St Marys Soccer Club.

“Someone told me they are going to bury me here … another guy said I don’t have red blood, I have green blood in my veins,” the club’s president said with a laugh.

Youssef, 64, and wife Genelle joined the committee in 1996, a few years after their son started playing soccer.

The Service to Sport nominee spends up to 20 hours a week at Potter Field each season.

Junior Sports Star Service to Sport nominee Joe Youssef.

As social secretary, he landed the club’s first sponsor in St Marys Bowling Club and now-major sponsor St Marys Rugby League Club.

“That was big dollars and we needed it because every four or five years we buy a set of playing strips,” Youssef, of Colyton, said.

In the early 2000s, he earned the Saints $17,000 in a year by getting groups to taste-test company foods.

One of his raffles, which had as a prize a ball signed by retired Brazilian soccer star Pele, raised $10,000.

Youssef lobbied Penrith Council as president in 2014 to fully returf the field has pushed for the installation of new flood lights.

Youssef has been St Marys sports manager and vice president and also shown his love for the club on the field, formerly as a player and then coach of juniors through to senior teams.

He said he was proud to have watched and helped member numbers rise, from 24 to 42 teams.

“The majority of our teams are the juniors.

“We always concentrate on getting the younger players to join because that’s where the foundation is built.”

Joe Youssef is the president of St Marys Soccer Club.

He said he would “step aside” after the 2017 season and be vice president, in a bid to bring in new and younger faces.

“These are the ones who will be running the show hopefully for the next 10 to 15 years,” he said.

Youssef said he was already preparing his one-year-old grandson to be a player for the club.

■ Competition categories include Junior Sports Star, Young Sporting Spirit, Service to Sport and Team Spirit

■ Rebel is the major sponsor, with SportsTG and Simonds Homes

■ Nominations close later this month

■ Go to juniorsportsstar.com.au