In early 2013 Chris Jones was in a Nashville bar with a group of soccer-minded acquaintances wondering out loud how to start a club. "How do we do this? What do we charge per year?" Jones asked over a couple of drinks.

The local team, the Nashville Metros, had just folded and Jones, who had approached the club to run their marketing efforts but received no response, wanted to make sure that the city's growing love of soccer would not wane.

Inspired by English non-league team FC United of Manchester, he set about founding what was to become Nashville FC, a community-backed NPSL club that would be run by the fans and for the fans.

Without any real finances to start a club, Jones made the first kit himself - Vistaprint T-shirts designed by him ("terribly") before personally ironing on numbers on the back.

Fast forward three years from those humble beginnings, the city of Nashville has been celebrating the award of a USL expansion franchise that will start in 2018.

The ultimate goal for the soccer community in Nashville, however, is to gain a coveted place in Major League Soccer, with Nashville SC's owners working together with local businessman Bill Hagerty to gain a spot in the next round of expansion.

And Jones, then the Nashville FC president and now the Nashville SC general manager, admits that he is a little amazed about the noise soccer has been making in the Music City.