My son plays for a small club. When Liverpool had a tryout, 40 kids showed up. When our club had an open tryout, 2 kids showed up. Yet our club has a few flight 1 teams in some age groups. We love our club for its proximity to home, coaching and for the ample playing time my kid is getting. But, I'm a little concerned if one or two players leave, my team will no longer be competitive and we will be forced to leave as well. Thoughts?
How do small clubs survive?
- Thread starter Jamisfoes
- Start date
Recruitment vs Development is a portion of the equation.
Specific to your club, some of the equation is which teams tend to be flight 1. Do they gravitate to certain coaches, genders, or ages?
That's a good question. I am not sure how some age groups in my club managed to be competitive in flight 1. The coach must have done a good job recruiting and have very loyal kids.
COSMOS
BRONZE
This is tragic and a result of the all the PE money involved in youth sports.
I'm very familiar with your situation. We started a small (but growing!) club in 2017, and every year our oldest team, the 2005s, would hear, "We love how you play and how you train and would totally try out if you were DA/ECNL/etc., but we need to think about college recruiting some day so we're going to a bigger club." Building a club is hard when the larger ones have those structural advantages, and there were times when our roster size was... precarious.
But there's a lot to be said for training that your kid enjoys and responds to (and is challenged by). Ultimately that's more important to their development than a better-known name on the shirt. And if it comes with a shorter commute and more playing time? I say take it as long as you can.
Worst case, yes, the team may lose too many players to remain competitive, and then you're moving on, knowing that you got the most you could out of what was a great situation. Best case, the team stays and grows together, and then (I can tell you) you have something pretty special.
I probably will figure this out as soon as I hit "send" but what is "PE money"?
Private Equity I assume.
Small clubs can survive if they have fields locked down and have relationships with their park department and school district. But the team can have a hard time staying competitive because the top 1-3 players of the team will want to move. The small club has limited recruitment capabilities like you have observed. No slick marketing too. So they might have to end up accepting anyone who shows up to fill the roster. If the new players are not competitive and each age group only has one team, then you end up with a team that will not be competitive and it’s a never ending cycle. When you want to go will depend on where in the cycle your kid is at, one of the best on the team or lower.
Soccermom18
SILVER
I am pretty sure I know which club you are at and you have very loyal families but if your child is moving from a team that is 7v7 to 9v9 or 9v9 to 11v11, your age group will see a lot of kids at tryouts at the bigger clubs because there are slots to be filled.
Huge coup that Albion acquired the Nott's fields, they couldn't care less about the Club otherwise. Beats there gopher fields they were playing on and some of the Notts fields are lighted. They've already turned Hickman into a complete cluster. No question Nomads blew the opportunity to work something out with Notts. Sad to see Knotts go, they had been around forever. On occasion they would have some very good teams like their current boys 08 team, but they were getting fewer and farther between. They used to get a lot of players from a "club light" and a local rec league (both names escape me right now), but both those programs have disappeared.
Albion has also acquired SD United. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight for the Surf and Albion takeover of youth soccer.
justneededaname
SILVER ELITE
This year is particularly bad for the small clubs. They are always dealing with the pressure of trying to find/keep players compared to the big name clubs, and then add the pandemic to it. Look at the San Diego market. Notts Forest, San Diego United, Hotspurs all gone this year.
There are also market forces at play here. Albion wanted Hickman so they moved on Notts when they could. East County Surf is growing and showing that there is a market to support a big club in east county, so Albion wanted a piece of the pie and grabbed San Diego United. Hotspurs and Sporting SD joined forces to try to compete.
While we are trying to decide what is best for our kids, the clubs are making business decisions. If you can get lucky and have a great coach, a good set of kids and parents, and a competitive team ... ride it as long as you can. But always have a plan b.
There are also market forces at play here. Albion wanted Hickman so they moved on Notts when they could. East County Surf is growing and showing that there is a market to support a big club in east county, so Albion wanted a piece of the pie and grabbed San Diego United. Hotspurs and Sporting SD joined forces to try to compete.
While we are trying to decide what is best for our kids, the clubs are making business decisions. If you can get lucky and have a great coach, a good set of kids and parents, and a competitive team ... ride it as long as you can. But always have a plan b.
The best coach my kid ever had was with a small local club. The problem, as you note, is that unless you get a group of really good players that become friends and are capable of lifting the team to a new level (and there are plenty of examples where this does happen, but it has to happen early on in the process), you'll have the promotion/relegation issue. The team won't advance. After a season or two the best players become frustrated (particularly with the weaker or less dedicated players that aren't putting in the time)...will be ready for more challenges....will leave....you'll have to recruit new players. What's worse, in the younger ages they are probably playing in the key positions down the center line of striker/CM/CB/GK. so their departure is a particular blow. The middle tier has now been playing for 2 years and is ready to move on, but you have to bring in new players up from AYSO to fill in the gaps of the players that left and it takes them a season or two to get up to speed so that middle tier now wants to move on....rinse and repeat and you find yourself perpetually stuck in bronze. Works the same even without pro/rel since if you move too fast your team will be kicked 12-0 and the parents will complain and go elsewhere. If you are lucky enough to actually achieve promotion, that first year in the new tier is a bear because all your players are adjusting to the new level of play and you are playing teams that survived that level of play last year...you not only have to avoid relegation, but you got to be good enough to hit the middle of the table. That's why many coaches will upgrade using the promoted level to recruit better players instead of developing the ones that brought you to promotion.
It's a perpetual cycle for the smaller clubs. The only thing that really holds some of them in place is the field space access, particularly in the suburb towns, since school districts and parks and recs tend to give preference to the smaller local orgs. My son played for a heavily latino team that practiced in the public park....bear of a time recruiting any nonLatino players....every single anglo player that showed up looked at the park situation and said no thanks.
The other big factor is Coast v. SoCal League. Not a whole lot of local clubs in SoCal League, unless they've somehow affiliated themselves with some other club as a franchise. In Coast, if you get promotion early enough, you can get teams from small clubs that thrive. A lot of those Coast teams are heavily ethnic too from local barrios and not just Latino. And AYSO United has become a recruiting machine (being able to get first dibs on players coming out of Extras or Core) and plays in Coast, but increasingly, I think their membership in Coast is going to hold them back if they don't make the hop to SoCal League.
100%
You have hit the nail in the head. I think the key to keeping the team together is to form friendships among the core players. Small clubs/parents need to facilitate team building by having activities outside soccer. One advantage of small club is the family feel you get when you interact with coaches and DOC. You feel like you know everyone.
outside!
DA
Mott's had 5 fields, some with lights and still had to merge with Albion.