If this really is ‘Make It Or Break It’ time for FC Edmonton, as I believe it to be, then meet the men Tom Fath has hired to try to finally Make It.

It’s been musical chairs behind the general manager’s desk of the North American Soccer League franchise that has hit the seven-year itch phase of existence, still itching to start being a success on and off the field.

The latest to take the GM job is Jay Ball, fresh from three years heading up the ticketing, marketing and sponsorship for the local organizing committee of the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

And as added measure, to give the city’s suddenly third-place team in the 12-team NASL full-season standings its best chance to succeed yet, owner Fath has hired former Edmonton Oilers president and CEO Pat LaForge as a franchise consultant.

Ball has been on the job four months and is coming off a season-high attendance, an albeit modest gathering of 2,861 in a makeshift stadium seating just over 4,000.

It’s not a long time on the job but long enough to get a pretty good idea where this team is at and where it has to go if it’s going to inspire a new 8,000-seat soccer specific stadium.

Like everybody else involved, he knows this franchise is dead without that new expandable stadium in its future.

While owners Tom and Dave Fath are going to have to determine if there is any hope with city council of making that happen sooner than later, Ball’s job, along with head coach Colin Miller, is to do everything in his power to make FC Edmonton a happening.

There’s some evidence the team may be on the precipice of doing that.

Miller has been doing nothing short of an excellent job of building the club and when Nik Ledgerwood scored a man short in the 82nd minute to win the ‘Canadian Derby’ 1-0 over the Ottawa Fury Sunday, it was the sixth straight home win and pushed Edmonton (7-3-3) into third place in the overall standings, three points back of the league-leading New York Cosmos and one back of the Indy Eleven.

It’s Ball’s job to create the same kind of improvement in attendance to match the results on the field.

Ball believes Miller’s team at the top of the tables with the league-leading New York Cosmos in next Wednesday evening gives FC Edmonton a chance to have a special game to create a special scene, and that would be a first.

“I think the biggest key has been Colin Miller and his decision to take the team to Scotland for training camp,” said Ball.

“One of the challenges we have every year is that we don’t have a full-field indoor stadium. We have the half-field setup in the Commonwealth Stadium field house. This year he took the team to Scotland and solved that problem and this year we didn’t lose most of our games in the spring season schedule.

“Colin took the team away from all the hockey, away from all the snow and ice. He took them to his hometown of Glasgow, telling them, ‘We’re not going where there’s 10 sports pages of hockey, were going where there’s 10 sports pages of soccer.’

“They played a bunch of friendlies against pro teams and were ready to start the season when they returned.”

Ball, when he moved into the job, changed over 70% of the staff.

“We decided as a team when we started four months ago that we had to start from scratch, because what’s been happening these last five and six years with Tom’s money just hasn’t been working.

“Change the people. Change the culture. And Sunday we started to see some signs of it working with the environment. That was never here before until two games ago.

“That was the first thing I did as GM when I came in. I put the bleachers behind the net for the loud rowdies in our supporters group. That’s what they wanted. That gave them the ability to engage the crowd and be loud. Now we need to fill even more seats and give them more people to engage with.

“I was really surprised when I took the job just how much we have to start from scratch. The thing is, though, if you do it, you’ll be able to do things you can’t do at Commonwealth or Rexall or Rogers Place.

“We had a taste of it Sunday in our win over the Ottawa Fury. The soccer culture is the supporter group in the end zone — where we finally have a set of stands for them — it’s the flags, the singing. There’s real environment built into this sport like no other.

“Our fan team is in the community every night now. We’re out at the soccer field communicating with people. We have our mascots out. It is much more grassroots now. That’s where it has to start.

“The greatest challenge is finding a way to connect emotionally with the fans. This club has never been grassroots into the community. The bottom line is that there are 25,000 kids that play minor soccer. That’s twice as many as hockey and football. One of our strongest markets should be minor soccer families. We really have to find ways to connect emotionally with fans and the best is to go to their house before you invite them to our house.”

The reality may be, as I believe, that FC Edmonton is likely to do little but spin its wheels playing in such an unacceptable, stupid stadium, but Ball has accepted the challenge of trying to fill the place and inspire the creation of a new stadium that way.

“We live in a metro area of more than a million people without a soccer-specific stadium. It’s difficult to find a metro area of a million people in the USA without a soccer stadium. We need a stadium and the minor soccer community needs a stadium it can call its own.”

One way or another it has to happen or this team is history.

And how does LaForge fit into this picture?

Fath was inspired to hire the former Oilers’ CEO, who has put up his shingle (PRL Corporation) and is now in the sports and entertainment consulting business.

“Lets go back to where we are,” said Fath for the decision to make the move to bring LaForge on board.

“As far as filling the stands, where we are is reasonably close to where we were four years ago. We haven’t really advanced that far in four years. Where we are is a very long way from break even. We didn’t do this to make money, we did this to give back to the community.

“We are working hard at moving toward sustainability and trying a lot of different things to try and get there.”

Enter LaForge.

“He’s one of the many tools in the tool box, isn’t he?

“He’s from Edmonton and we’re from Edmonton. He knows our family. There are very few people in this city that have as much experience in the sports and entertainment field as Patrick.”

It is the nature of what LaForge now does to be secretive about who he’s working for because a lot of the clubs don’t want it known that they’ve enlisted help.

He’s working with several hockey teams across Canada and the U.S. — and now one soccer team.

And Fath doesn’t mind people knowing he’s hired a consultant.

“It’s interesting. It’s exciting. Like most of the teams I’m working with, they are only inches away from success,” said LaForge.

“I’m there to give them that extra first down, if you will, when it comes to sales, marketing and business strategy.”

LaForge says for the short term he needs to show some direction in terms of adding fans to the stands that they do have in their miserable little makeshift stadium.

FC Edmonton is a team with two of the three things LaForge says are needed to be a successful franchise.

“1. You need a good owner.

“2. You need a good market.

“3. You need a good facility.

“I think Tom and Dave Fath are terrific owners.

“And I think Edmonton is a great soccer market. I went to the FIFA Women’s World Cup and you cannot help but be impressed if you attended that here. The fans were knowledgeable about the game. They paid their money. They filled Commonwealth Stadium. But the market isn’t stupid, either. They are an informed bunch of sports fans here. They’ve rejected some things here. But when they buy in, they do it for a reason. I think it’s a good soccer market, I really do.

“I think FC Edmonton is close enough to get really, really excited about it and far enough away to …

“Tom is a very kind person and when he phoned me about this I could tell he was at the edge of his bed. He asked me to help him and I said, ‘Absolutely.’

“I told him I admired what he’s doing.

“Most days he feels like he’s all by himself. Now he has me here to tell him what all this stuff means and he’s tuning in pretty quickly.”

There can be a happy ending here.

terry.jones@sunmedia.ca

@sunterryjones