Denial

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a pub in London, England catching up with an old friend who I hadn’t seen in quite awhile after taking in a Liverpool/West Ham match.

After a quick round of ‘how’s life/are you dating anyone/wasn’t it funny that time we both appeared on Brietbart labeled as left wing extremist Bernie Supporters?’ our discussion switched to our love/frustration/passion for this unique niche we both share called United States Division 2 Soccer.

After a few beers, and an hour or so of ‘fixing’ the problem (including countless rabbit holes), it suddenly occurred to both of us that we were sitting in a bar thousands of miles away from the closest American D2 club and had spent a majority of our time on the subject. Little did we know a few hours later the NASL’s court case wouldn’t go the way we’d hoped, thus rendering all of our brilliant plans null and void. To be honest, in the blur of jet lag and drinks I don’t remember what those plans were in the slightest. However, I’m sure they would have fixed everything.

Fast forward to a few weeks later: FC Edmonton has folded, the first year and newly crowned NASL Champion San Francisco Deltas have folded, and my local club has joined the USL.

Wait…huh? Surely this didn’t mean the end of the league we’d clung to and fought to defend for years?

Anger

Around a year ago, I first heard the rumors that North Carolina FC might be jumping ship to the USL, and the thought turned my stomach. I hated the idea of the USL. From the single entity format to the level of play, mixed with all the MLS2 teams drawing under a thousand fans a game… I just couldn’t understand why anyone would want that.

Why would anyone want to play in a league where 1/3 of the teams are essentially farm clubs to be raided and used at a moments notice? In my head, the USL was this total bastardization of soccer into a ‘one-size-fits all’ package with a giant ‘Made in America’ stamp on the front.

But, here we are.

Bargaining

First off I’ll say: I’m still not over that. However, what other choice did the club I support have? The NASL’s model is broken, and it’s not broken because of US Soccer (though they didn’t help).

It’s broken because expansion owners weren’t properly vetted or informed.

Remember that scene from ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ where DiCaprio convinces average joes to invest above their means, spinning them tales of fame and fortune? I guess that’s about 90% of the entire flick, but essentially it’s how I envision former NASL Commissioner Bill Peterson pitching franchises to potential expansion candidates. Most of these owners had no clue of the massive financial burden they were about to sign up for… and got out as soon as they could.

After each season, fans of the NASL (myself included) would say things like:

“Well yeah the league is small this year, BUT, next year two or three teams will join the league, the year after that 2 or 3 more. Once we’re above 20 or so that we’ll be able to join up with another league and create a promotion/relegation system”.

That wasn’t just the fans either.

It was coming from the league, the clubs, and every journalist insane enough to cover it. Did any of that happen? Sure, the NASL has two clubs in California United and 1904 FC joining this year, but they’ve lost three. Last year they added a few teams, lost a few more. The year before that, the same. At some point you have to realize that for the good of your club, your community, and the growth of the sport, changes have to be made. For me, processing what those changes actually have to be has been a tough pill, but as with most change, it’s a pill I need to shut up and take.

If you’ve ever been to a North Carolina FC match with Oak City Supporters, you know that we traditionally tailgate underneath a statue just outside of the stadium we’ve affectionately named the “MoonTower.” Around midseason, while sipping beers under that statue I lost track of the amount of times I heard a conversation go something like this:

‘Who we got at home next?’

‘Puerto Rico FC.’

‘What? Again? Haven’t we already played them like 5 times at home?’

‘Only twice I think.’

‘No no, surely it’s been 4 or 5 times.’

And so the conversation would go. I can’t even lie and say I didn’t get tired of playing the same teams match after match. Almost every week: Puerto Rico, Edmonton, Miami, Indy. Teams from places most of our members had never visited or had any real connection to.

Surely that isn’t good for the growth of the sport in Raleigh, North Carolina.

For the 2017 season, NCFC’s closest road trip was an 8 hour drive down to Jacksonville, FL. We made the trip once this season and managed to show up in force, bringing 50 or so supporters down in mid October, and it was a great time, but is that sustainable? Does that really make rivalries that bring people out to games? I don’t think so. A quick glance at the 2017 USL map shows that we’ll have 5–7 teams that wouldn’t require purchasing a plane ticket to get to.

For supporters culture and the growth of the sport, that is huge.

Depression

I would watch North Carolina FC play in a five team league that only holds its matches in a wooden shed in February. But I’m not normal, and I know that. In the three seasons that Oak City Supporters has existed, we’ve tried a lot of different ways to get local soccer fans out to matches.

One way that always works for supporters? Local rivalries.

NCFC supporters filled a bus for a meaningless preseason match in Charlotte and again for a US Open Cup match in Greensboro. Too add to that, both teams were in lower divisions than us at the time.

This isn’t just a Raleigh thing. If you’re reading this you probably saw that this year Charlotte brought quite the group to Raleigh for our match in the Open Cup, on a Wednesday. The attendance and atmosphere in our overall stadium that night was pretty poor, but in both supporters sections, it was electric.

Having that multiple times a year, home and away in league play? Yeah, I’m into that.

A 2017 trip to Jacksonville. (Photo Credit: Oak City Supporters)

Acceptance

This might only apply to me, but for my own sanity, I forced myself to decide on three things that trumped all else for how I would approach this offseason move. They are as follows:

1. I want this sport to work in the US. Even more than that, I want it to work in North Carolina.

2. I want that terrible feeling you get when you’ve spent all week on various forms of social media going at the other team’s supporters, only to have to swallow your words because your club lost.

3. I want that feeling because the high you get when the opposite happens, and your team pulls out a win, is truly that damn good. It’s what we need to truly grow this sport into something more and more people care about and actually get.