There have been a few bumps in the road this season, one being travel.

“(Away games) are not overly far — Vaughan, Georgetown, Etobicoke, Guelph — but it’s tough to get the guys lined up for road games,” team director Christopher Dodd said. “We did have a couple of games where the ball’s about to be kicked off and we’re still looking at the parking lot for a couple of guys to show up.”

Despite providing the highest calibre of amateur soccer in the city, attracting fans, admits Dodd, will be tough as currently the spectators often consist of a few friends and family members.

The 9 p.m. starts don’t help either.

Moving home games from centrally-located Nelson to City View, an unfamiliar destination for a lot of city residents, helps even less.

“We have a lot of working players and the time works best for attendance,” Dodd admitted.

Clash City has about 25 players, mostly from Burlington, to choose from in order to field enough bodies for every game. There are six or seven core players who miss very few games, and then there are the rest.

Age varies from 21-37, with the average around 26.

“We have a good balance of former CSL players and university ballplayers,” Dodd says.

On a team used to winning, certain players stand out, from left winger Justin Johnson, the team’s leading scorer, to netminders Yousef Al-Abar and Brenden Agro. But it’s Scott Maclennan, the team’s centre midfielder, who is the heart of the Clash, according to Dodd.

A member of the team for the past two years, Maclennan said he just tries to make an impact.

A Nelson High School graduate, Maclennan, 32, grew up and played on Burlington Youth Soccer Club rep teams before playing university soccer at Brock. Most of the next decade he played in the Canadian Soccer League until coming to the Clash.

Along the way Maclennan was a Canadian Interuniversity Sport all-Canadian, an Ontario University Athletics all-star and two-time club MVP while playing for the CSL’s Roma Wolves.

“There are a lot of good players in this league considering its a only a couple of levels from either a rec league or a semi-professional league,” Maclennan said. “There is a lot of talent and a lot of good guys.”

Advancement to a higher-calibre Premier Division of the OSL awaits the first-place team in the division, which is on the minds of Maclennan and his teammates.

“We’re hoping to do that this year and move up,” Maclennan said. “Everyone wants to move up. It’s a collective goal.”

Rymar, a synthetic turf company, is the team’s main sponsor, featured on the club’s home and away (white and black) jerseys. The club also gets help in offsetting expenses from S & D Accountants, Pioneer Pool, Langtry Blast Technologies and Thistle Fish and Chips.

The quick ascent of the team, led by club president Henry Hobbs, doesn’t surprise Maclennan.

“(Management) has put in a lot of legwork,” he said. “They make sure the guys are involved and invested and they contribute in any way they can. They put in a lot of work behind the scenes that’s pretty incredible, actually.”