Image: Whittlesea Ranges
An Australian born footballer with Iranian heritage, Tommy Barforosh has established himself as an intelligent young forward with an eye for goal in the NPL.
Growing up a Brunswick City junior and becoming leading goal scorer every season earned him a position in the senior squad in 2014 despite only being 15 years of age at the time.
The youngster had received an offer from a big A-league clubs at the time in the Central Coast Mariners. He returned home to Melbourne and had started in the first few NPL senior games for Brunswick in 2014, scoring on a few occasions.
In the off-season he had trialed at both Melbourne City and the Newcastle Jets, with both trials going to plan and receiving an offer to move to Newcastle.
Being intelligent both on and off the park, he decided to turn down those offers to focus and complete his studies here in Melbourne, and didn’t desire a change of scenery at the time.
“Central coast and Newcastle would have been nice places to be and to play football, especially Newcastle Jets, who only took two training sessions to tell me they want me to move up and it was exciting because I was very young and new to any A-League clubs,” he said.
“But I also got an offer from Melbourne City and it just seemed a good decision to stay near home so I could finish high school and play at an A-League club at the same time.”
In the summer of 2015, Barforosh joined Melbourne City from his childhood club Brunswick City.
He enjoyed a successful 22 months at the club, being the equal leading U20 goal scorer alongside Nicolas Gonzalez and also winning the U20 NPL title. Coached by Lachlan Armstrong, his performances earned a position to train with NPL senior squad under the watchful eye of Joe Montemurro.
After earning his spot in the squad he scored on two occasions in six appearances for the NPL senior side, and trained with the main A-League team.
“At City it was good to experience a professional club and its environment to know what it takes to make it and play in professional systems,” Barforosh said.
“Training with the A-League side showed me it was very possible to be a professional player with hard work. It was also good to get some success there as well and to be top goalscorer in my first season was nice too.”
In the mid-season transfer window in 2016 Barforosh joined the Whittlesea Ranges. He made the change to play regularly with the seniors at the Ranges to be able to prove himself and move up to a higher level.
In his first few games with the Ranges he started as a substitute and made an impact in those games, before earning his starting role in the squad.
Scoring three goals in 12 appearances in 2016 made Barforosh adamant to make an improvement in 2017. He worked hard in the off-season to accomplish this, which has been evident so far this season.
“Ranges is the best team environment I’ve ever been in, I love coming to work hard at training and feel as though I’ve grown as a player and can move up to a higher level in this team,” he said.
Barforosh has hit the ground running in 2017, netting in five straight games (with one coming in the FFA cup against Banyule) and was recently selected in the TCF team of the month NPL 2 west.
The forward has been grateful to head coach Vinko Buljubasic for his extended opportunity at a senior level.
“Vinko has really given me the opportunity to show what I have and how I can play, and hopefully our team has some success this year too to top it all off.”
Barforosh will be looking to add to his tally in the Ranges’ next fixture against the Moreland Zebras, which is set to be an NPL2 West blockbuster at Epping Stadium at 3pm on Sunday afternoon.