I've got a cold that's keeping me awake so I'm bored. What's your local team like? I don't mean the nearest major team to you -- unless it *is* your local team, and if so you can write about it -- I mean the random ass one down the street that might have dogs running around the stadium. Or chickens, some teams have chickens in the stadium (looking at you, Portuguese guys). What are they like, what's the area like?
Are you even interested in answering me? I'm going to post about mine anyway, so I don't care.
My local team is the Charlotte Eagles, they play in the USL Premier Development League which is nominally the fourth tier of the blown-up pillow fort American soccer calls a league system. They play here, at Dickson Field in South Charlotte which they rent from Queens University of Charlotte. It holds about 5,000 people and the women's team plays there too.
The Eagles are pretty unique actually, especially considering how a lot of teams in this country are really dull and kind of run together after awhile (rich dude, stadium has a stage in it for concerts). The team is actually part of a Christian missionary organization called MAI. They go on mission trips and stuff in the off season and hold services before games, most if not all of the players are involved in ministry in some way. They attract a lot of players from Africa and the Caribbean and have even had a few internationals for Jamaica and Trinidad (and maybe Uganda, I'm not sure). They're pretty old by the standards of the national divisions in this country too having been founded in 1991, ancient even, they might even be the oldest team in the top four tiers (though local leagues have some really old teams). They've won a few lower division titles (in 2000 and 2008, I think) and generally compete but the money boys (Orlando...) usually get the better of them.
The team moved down to the PDL for this season to make way for the Charlotte Independence, a new franchise that probably offers a better cultural fit for the way USL Pro is going to be run now -- basically as a farm league for MLS -- that'll be affiliated with the Colorado Rapids (here's a random fact since I'm a nerd: Charlotte is closer to twelve national capitals than it is its MLS affiliate - Washington, Ottawa, Hamilton, Nassau, Havana, Grand Turk, George Town, Kingston, Port-au-Prince, Santa Domingo, Belmopan, and Guatemala City). Usually the PDL consists of college kids playing while they're out of school but given the team's unique mission we'll see if they do that, stick with their normal setup, or go with some hybrid.
They more or less discovered a player called Christian Ramirez who currently plays for Minnesota in the NASL. He kind of fell through the cracks because we suck at developing players in this country but thankfully they saw him. He could turn into a good player for the US. They can claim Clint Irwin too. And Leah Fortune.
Dickson Field is on Tyvola which has a huge mall (South Park...yeah) and runs into South Blvd. on the other end, the heart of a built-up area called South End (and that's the hat trick) which has a lot to do.
Charlotte itself is the largest city in the Carolinas and the anchor city of a metropolitan area that includes cities like Dallas and Denver. It's very religious and has lots and lots of banks. Chief export: Attractive, talented Fox News anchors (Ainsley Earhardt, Anna Kooiman, Danielle Trotta [Fox Sports, but still] and Heather Childers are all from Charlotte).
Did you learn anything? What is your local team like?
Are you even interested in answering me? I'm going to post about mine anyway, so I don't care.
My local team is the Charlotte Eagles, they play in the USL Premier Development League which is nominally the fourth tier of the blown-up pillow fort American soccer calls a league system. They play here, at Dickson Field in South Charlotte which they rent from Queens University of Charlotte. It holds about 5,000 people and the women's team plays there too.
The Eagles are pretty unique actually, especially considering how a lot of teams in this country are really dull and kind of run together after awhile (rich dude, stadium has a stage in it for concerts). The team is actually part of a Christian missionary organization called MAI. They go on mission trips and stuff in the off season and hold services before games, most if not all of the players are involved in ministry in some way. They attract a lot of players from Africa and the Caribbean and have even had a few internationals for Jamaica and Trinidad (and maybe Uganda, I'm not sure). They're pretty old by the standards of the national divisions in this country too having been founded in 1991, ancient even, they might even be the oldest team in the top four tiers (though local leagues have some really old teams). They've won a few lower division titles (in 2000 and 2008, I think) and generally compete but the money boys (Orlando...) usually get the better of them.
The team moved down to the PDL for this season to make way for the Charlotte Independence, a new franchise that probably offers a better cultural fit for the way USL Pro is going to be run now -- basically as a farm league for MLS -- that'll be affiliated with the Colorado Rapids (here's a random fact since I'm a nerd: Charlotte is closer to twelve national capitals than it is its MLS affiliate - Washington, Ottawa, Hamilton, Nassau, Havana, Grand Turk, George Town, Kingston, Port-au-Prince, Santa Domingo, Belmopan, and Guatemala City). Usually the PDL consists of college kids playing while they're out of school but given the team's unique mission we'll see if they do that, stick with their normal setup, or go with some hybrid.
They more or less discovered a player called Christian Ramirez who currently plays for Minnesota in the NASL. He kind of fell through the cracks because we suck at developing players in this country but thankfully they saw him. He could turn into a good player for the US. They can claim Clint Irwin too. And Leah Fortune.
Dickson Field is on Tyvola which has a huge mall (South Park...yeah) and runs into South Blvd. on the other end, the heart of a built-up area called South End (and that's the hat trick) which has a lot to do.
Charlotte itself is the largest city in the Carolinas and the anchor city of a metropolitan area that includes cities like Dallas and Denver. It's very religious and has lots and lots of banks. Chief export: Attractive, talented Fox News anchors (Ainsley Earhardt, Anna Kooiman, Danielle Trotta [Fox Sports, but still] and Heather Childers are all from Charlotte).
Did you learn anything? What is your local team like?
So imagine our lower leagues 
We used to have a whole TV show devoted to the bottom teams of the lowest leagues, it was incredible.
