ResultsMatter
BRONZE
(Disclaimer: This is a long post, consolidating nearly a decade of observation. This post is a memoir. It reflects the author’s present recollections of experiences over time. Some event time lines and characteristics have been changed, some events have been compressed, and some dialogue has been recreated.)
I thought about responding to this thread (https://socalsoccer.com/threads/east-county-surf.18035/) a year or two ago, but with all the Covid effects on soccer play over the previous couple of years, I held off due to uncertainty of how things were really going for the club and teams. I decided to make a new thread instead of resurrecting the old thread to update how things went before and after our Club decided to franchise with Surf. We’ve played with Liverpool/East County Surf on and off for many years, as Liverpool and as EC Surf. What started as a great premise proposed by Liverpool, developing and consolidating the top players in San Diego’s East County into one organization to create top level competitive teams in our own community, turned into a business that appears to primarily be concerned with quantity over quality for the purpose of making more money with less effort.
When Liverpool SC was started in East County there were multiple small community clubs in the area: Hotspurs, OVC, United, Real Madrid, Crusaders, Sporting, Matrix. They all were competing for players and all struggling to break into the top competitive youth brackets. As players developed and recognized there were no clubs in the area moving up in level of play, they would commute west to clubs playing at a higher level: Albion, Rebels, SD Surf, Sharks, SDSC. In an attempt to stop losing East County players to the aforementioned clubs, Liverpool started consolidating coaches and players into a single organization, many of the local clubs and coaches resisted as expected.
Liverpool started on the right path. They provided training to coaches so they were all training players the same way, implemented a style of play that would progress from the U-littles into the Older Groups, and focused on playing using strategy and technique over 1v1 athleticism to increase the quality of play. After a couple seasons, the results were showing as all the teams were moving up in level of play, and players from the area started moving over.
As players started moving over and the number of teams increased, it started the churn of rosters in the area. If a player didn’t make the top team now that there is more than one team per age group at the club, they would switch clubs to one of the other local options who only had one team per age group. For the next couple of years, the same players rotated in and out of the local teams, while Liverpool struggled to provide enough coaches and fields for the players they had. Many of the players and rosters were changing, but everything else remained the same. The players who were serious, and could afford it, continued to move West to the big clubs. The core players remained and continued to contribute to the goal of building a top club in East County.
Consolidating top talent in the area into one team was not working with the constant churn of players. When Liverpool/EC Surf would move progressing players up from the second teams, and demote those who were not keeping up, they would lose groups of players to competing teams. Parents were upset that new talent was disrupting their social groups and established pecking order. EC Surf started recruiting these competing club and high school coaches as an entire package deal to keep players from club hopping in the area. Even though these were the coaches that they had been telling everyone “didn’t know how to coach,” or “didn’t know how to play possession,” “only focus on kickball that won’t be successful when they are older,” etc. This wholesale team recruitment started while the club was still named Liverpool, but really picked up with the name change to Surf. In that regard, it was a successful strategy to franchise as a Surf affiliate for the marketing recognition. As entire teams and coaches joined, the other local organizations dwindled, and most of them folded up. A few of the local teams who didn’t join with EC Surf partnered to play under other big club banners to stay together (Rebels East, Albion EC, Sporting, Legends SD), but their numbers are very limited, and they are really struggling to keep the teams going. Once the current teams start aging out of these satellite organizations, they will probably fold as well; it doesn’t appear they are building younger teams.
The problem with bringing entire teams into a club is how to integrate them with the existing players and coaches. The teams that are coming over don’t want to be dismantled, the coach doesn’t want to lose the team, and they certainly don’t want to be the second, third, or fourth team. The existing teams have the same concerns. Meetings with parents, players, and coaches assured everyone that each player would be evaluated fairly and placed appropriately for their development. Cross training within the teams of the same age group would further fine tune placement, and movement of players between teams would happen throughout the season. This was all a farce. They initially moved a couple players from each team after tryouts, but the abilities of the players moved didn’t match expectations. It didn’t make any sense based on watching most of the players for 6+ years; as many players had been on teams together at some point over the past few years of the churn. EC Surf did not consolidate the top players into one team, not even close. How did it go unnoticed for so long? Keep the teams separate, keep them separate, keep them separate. Players never moved, even though they obviously should have, teams never trained together, heck, even during covid they never even scrimmaged each other on their own fields, never, even though the teams were traveling to different states just to get some play time.
The next year, more teams were recruited. Did they get better at integrating them into the club? No. Now, there was a noticeable change in the style of play amongst the different teams. The new coaches did not appear to adopt the system Liverpool had been building, the new players of the recruited teams resisted integrating the existing players into the recruited teams, the new parents did not share the vision of building a top tier club (competitive teams over social networks). The pillars of what the club was being built on were eroded away quickly. The players lingo to describe the current club/team culture is a “toxic environment.”
A lot of good players left during these transitions. Some were not keen on the change over to a Surf affiliate, some were not keen on the obvious political nature of wholesale team selections, some just outgrew the club. I don’t recall any of the parents being excited or happy about the move to franchise with Surf when it was announced. Liverpool tried to sell the change as a coordinated pathway to move the best performing players over to SD Surf to play with them until EC Surf built up top competitive teams and then they could move back. They stood up there at a parent meeting and actually told everyone to their face, they would be working together with the coaching staff at SD Surf to move players back and forth for their best development. I don’t think anyone is surprised to hear that was a complete fabrication to get buy-in from the existing players. Prices would stay the same, we would have access to better facilities, our coaches would be training with the SD Surf coaches, all bullshit. Why would SD Surf want to franchise with Liverpool? This question was never answered by the club, the only thing they would bring up is that SD Surf would benefit from using our talent while we grow. Not a single player to anyone’s knowledge has been moved over to one of SD Surf’s top teams by the club, some have left to go play with them on their own, but it is no surprise.
Didn’t take long to figure out how SD Surf benefits from the affiliates. Our club gained access to their facilities all right, the Del Mar Polo Fields. So instead of playing on the multiple nice turf facilities we have access to in East County, we hold many of our events and games at the Polo Fields, and we and our opponents all get to pay for parking each time. Additionally, as a Surf affiliate, the players are REQUIRED to buy a COMPLETE uniform kit EVERY year. SD Surf gets a percentage of these uniform sales. There it is, that is why they are franchising faster than McDonalds. If your club is a Surf affiliate, you are funding the very organization that is working behind the scenes to keep control of the closed loop leagues, and keep your up-and-coming players locked out, but, let’s stay focused on EC Surf.
The Surf name recognition seems to have been a successful marketing strategy for consolidating the players in East County. Unfortunately, it has not been successful in keeping the top talent in East County. Even though the effects of recruiting entire teams with coaches stopped the loss of demoted players, the attrition of top players continues. This current year Hotspurs, United, and I think Real Madrid folded up in East County, and a lot of the Crusaders, Sporting, Rebels East, and Matrix teams disbanded or moved over to EC Surf. EC Surf was looking at a massive pool of players and talent this year, and also brought in some professional licensed coaches with quality experience coaching in the top leagues. They were accepted into the DPL, which is a performance dependent but realistic path into GA. Everything EC Surf needed to reach their goal of providing a top-level soccer option in East County was on the table. They chose another path.
I thought about responding to this thread (https://socalsoccer.com/threads/east-county-surf.18035/) a year or two ago, but with all the Covid effects on soccer play over the previous couple of years, I held off due to uncertainty of how things were really going for the club and teams. I decided to make a new thread instead of resurrecting the old thread to update how things went before and after our Club decided to franchise with Surf. We’ve played with Liverpool/East County Surf on and off for many years, as Liverpool and as EC Surf. What started as a great premise proposed by Liverpool, developing and consolidating the top players in San Diego’s East County into one organization to create top level competitive teams in our own community, turned into a business that appears to primarily be concerned with quantity over quality for the purpose of making more money with less effort.
When Liverpool SC was started in East County there were multiple small community clubs in the area: Hotspurs, OVC, United, Real Madrid, Crusaders, Sporting, Matrix. They all were competing for players and all struggling to break into the top competitive youth brackets. As players developed and recognized there were no clubs in the area moving up in level of play, they would commute west to clubs playing at a higher level: Albion, Rebels, SD Surf, Sharks, SDSC. In an attempt to stop losing East County players to the aforementioned clubs, Liverpool started consolidating coaches and players into a single organization, many of the local clubs and coaches resisted as expected.
Liverpool started on the right path. They provided training to coaches so they were all training players the same way, implemented a style of play that would progress from the U-littles into the Older Groups, and focused on playing using strategy and technique over 1v1 athleticism to increase the quality of play. After a couple seasons, the results were showing as all the teams were moving up in level of play, and players from the area started moving over.
As players started moving over and the number of teams increased, it started the churn of rosters in the area. If a player didn’t make the top team now that there is more than one team per age group at the club, they would switch clubs to one of the other local options who only had one team per age group. For the next couple of years, the same players rotated in and out of the local teams, while Liverpool struggled to provide enough coaches and fields for the players they had. Many of the players and rosters were changing, but everything else remained the same. The players who were serious, and could afford it, continued to move West to the big clubs. The core players remained and continued to contribute to the goal of building a top club in East County.
Consolidating top talent in the area into one team was not working with the constant churn of players. When Liverpool/EC Surf would move progressing players up from the second teams, and demote those who were not keeping up, they would lose groups of players to competing teams. Parents were upset that new talent was disrupting their social groups and established pecking order. EC Surf started recruiting these competing club and high school coaches as an entire package deal to keep players from club hopping in the area. Even though these were the coaches that they had been telling everyone “didn’t know how to coach,” or “didn’t know how to play possession,” “only focus on kickball that won’t be successful when they are older,” etc. This wholesale team recruitment started while the club was still named Liverpool, but really picked up with the name change to Surf. In that regard, it was a successful strategy to franchise as a Surf affiliate for the marketing recognition. As entire teams and coaches joined, the other local organizations dwindled, and most of them folded up. A few of the local teams who didn’t join with EC Surf partnered to play under other big club banners to stay together (Rebels East, Albion EC, Sporting, Legends SD), but their numbers are very limited, and they are really struggling to keep the teams going. Once the current teams start aging out of these satellite organizations, they will probably fold as well; it doesn’t appear they are building younger teams.
The problem with bringing entire teams into a club is how to integrate them with the existing players and coaches. The teams that are coming over don’t want to be dismantled, the coach doesn’t want to lose the team, and they certainly don’t want to be the second, third, or fourth team. The existing teams have the same concerns. Meetings with parents, players, and coaches assured everyone that each player would be evaluated fairly and placed appropriately for their development. Cross training within the teams of the same age group would further fine tune placement, and movement of players between teams would happen throughout the season. This was all a farce. They initially moved a couple players from each team after tryouts, but the abilities of the players moved didn’t match expectations. It didn’t make any sense based on watching most of the players for 6+ years; as many players had been on teams together at some point over the past few years of the churn. EC Surf did not consolidate the top players into one team, not even close. How did it go unnoticed for so long? Keep the teams separate, keep them separate, keep them separate. Players never moved, even though they obviously should have, teams never trained together, heck, even during covid they never even scrimmaged each other on their own fields, never, even though the teams were traveling to different states just to get some play time.
The next year, more teams were recruited. Did they get better at integrating them into the club? No. Now, there was a noticeable change in the style of play amongst the different teams. The new coaches did not appear to adopt the system Liverpool had been building, the new players of the recruited teams resisted integrating the existing players into the recruited teams, the new parents did not share the vision of building a top tier club (competitive teams over social networks). The pillars of what the club was being built on were eroded away quickly. The players lingo to describe the current club/team culture is a “toxic environment.”
A lot of good players left during these transitions. Some were not keen on the change over to a Surf affiliate, some were not keen on the obvious political nature of wholesale team selections, some just outgrew the club. I don’t recall any of the parents being excited or happy about the move to franchise with Surf when it was announced. Liverpool tried to sell the change as a coordinated pathway to move the best performing players over to SD Surf to play with them until EC Surf built up top competitive teams and then they could move back. They stood up there at a parent meeting and actually told everyone to their face, they would be working together with the coaching staff at SD Surf to move players back and forth for their best development. I don’t think anyone is surprised to hear that was a complete fabrication to get buy-in from the existing players. Prices would stay the same, we would have access to better facilities, our coaches would be training with the SD Surf coaches, all bullshit. Why would SD Surf want to franchise with Liverpool? This question was never answered by the club, the only thing they would bring up is that SD Surf would benefit from using our talent while we grow. Not a single player to anyone’s knowledge has been moved over to one of SD Surf’s top teams by the club, some have left to go play with them on their own, but it is no surprise.
Didn’t take long to figure out how SD Surf benefits from the affiliates. Our club gained access to their facilities all right, the Del Mar Polo Fields. So instead of playing on the multiple nice turf facilities we have access to in East County, we hold many of our events and games at the Polo Fields, and we and our opponents all get to pay for parking each time. Additionally, as a Surf affiliate, the players are REQUIRED to buy a COMPLETE uniform kit EVERY year. SD Surf gets a percentage of these uniform sales. There it is, that is why they are franchising faster than McDonalds. If your club is a Surf affiliate, you are funding the very organization that is working behind the scenes to keep control of the closed loop leagues, and keep your up-and-coming players locked out, but, let’s stay focused on EC Surf.
The Surf name recognition seems to have been a successful marketing strategy for consolidating the players in East County. Unfortunately, it has not been successful in keeping the top talent in East County. Even though the effects of recruiting entire teams with coaches stopped the loss of demoted players, the attrition of top players continues. This current year Hotspurs, United, and I think Real Madrid folded up in East County, and a lot of the Crusaders, Sporting, Rebels East, and Matrix teams disbanded or moved over to EC Surf. EC Surf was looking at a massive pool of players and talent this year, and also brought in some professional licensed coaches with quality experience coaching in the top leagues. They were accepted into the DPL, which is a performance dependent but realistic path into GA. Everything EC Surf needed to reach their goal of providing a top-level soccer option in East County was on the table. They chose another path.
