In the 1940s and 1950s the original Bankstown club played at Bankstown Oval and then in the 1960s and 1970s, they played out of a ground at Stacey Street and Gartmore Ave, Bankstown, then known as Bankstown Soccer Centre and now Ruse Park.
In 1975, Yagoona Macedonia was created by a Mile Smileski in Yagoona and competed in their first domestic season and their first recorded game by the Bankstown Soccer Federation was against Padstow. As the years passed, so did the players and new faces began to emerge in the ever-growing Macedonian-Australian Sydney-based club.
By 1988, the original Bankstown club had become insolvent and there was no elite team in the local area for several years. A consortium of local businessman merged three amateur clubs: Yagoona, Caltex, and Mladost, and purchased Maccabi Hakoah’s licence to participate in the New South Wales Division 2, formulating the Bankstown City Sydney Macedonia Soccer Club. Bankstown once again had a team in the NSW State League. The new club had strong support from the local Bankstown and wider Macedonian community in Sydney, and named itself “Sydney Macedonia”. Sydney Macedonia finished 3rd in 1988.
In 1989, the club was Champion of Division 2, losing only 3 games all season and received promotion to New South Wales Division 1. They finished 6th in their first year in Division 1.
In 1992, Sydney Macedonia played its first game in the top tier of NSW Football since the early 1970s. The following year, the club finished 2nd, however they went on to win the grand final, scoring a goal in the final minute against perennial rival Blacktown City, and were Premiers of 1993. This was the first ever time that Bankstown had its team as champions of the NSW State League.
1994 was the most successful season in the club’s history. The team lost only 1 game in the season, winning 16 games in total. They scored 52 goals and conceded 9, and went on to win the grand final and finished as back-to-back (1993 & 1994) Champions. The silverware did not stop there – Sydney Macedonia went on to play Sydney Olympic in the 1994 Waratah Cup Final at Marconi Stadium. Sydney Macedonia defeated Sydney Olympic, an NSL team, 2–1 at a sold out Marconi Stadium. The club had ensured the treble: Premiers, Back to Back Champions, Cup Winners. This still is the most successful accomplishment for football in Bankstown. After the 1994 season, the club reverted to its current name: Bankstown City [Lions] FC.