Second team
I’ve never had a second team, never really understood the concept. One team gives me enough headaches.
When I lived back at home (sic) I used to watch a whole range of local sides – Welling, Bromley, Tonbridge, Hornchurch, Eastbourne Borough. It was a nice little outlet if the Addicks weren’t playing or were away.
I watched Chicago Fire a fair amount when I was living in the Windy City, but after moving to Bermuda, I never got into the Bermuda football league scene. The standard was poor and decidedly amateurish.
I’ve been in Sarasota about two and a half years, around about the same time as local businessmen Marcus Walfridson and Marco Assis formed Sarasota Paradise.
Wafridson in particular was big on marketing the brand and building a community club in a part of Florida that doesn’t have any professional sports teams. In fact Sarasota is only known in a sports sense as hosting spring training for northern based baseball teams.
Lakewood Ranch, a massive master planned community about 25 miles north-west of us here on the coast, was chosen as the home for Paradise where they play at the purpose built Premier Sports Campus. The 3,000 seats look a bit temporary but there is ample potential for expansion.
Their first game back in 2023 managed a crowd of almost 500. That was in USL 2, a semi-professional league that operates outside of the franchise-based MLS.
Last season, Paradise’s second season, crowds were up to an average of 1,350 and unbeaten at home they reached the playoffs-off’s bowing out in the regional semi-finals.
What has encouraged me to pay more attention to the USL is that from 2028 they will introduce a three-tier promotion and relegation system, unheard off in American sports.
This will feature a USL Premier League, USL Championship and USL League One. The system is expected to start with two teams moving up and down, eventually transitioning to a three-up, three-down model once each league has 20 teams.
The move has been well received. American based football (soccer) fans appreciate the jeopardy, matches up and down the table that have a consequence and the excitement of promotion and relegation because they have been schooled on overseas leagues. It will be interesting to see if the media grab hold off the idea.
In readiness the USL have encouraged clubs going professional and all of the current top tier are. The next level are mixed, but Sarasota Paradise who were moved up to USL 1, did go professional last year. Hardly life changing the players earn around $50k a year.
My plan is to get over and watch my new ‘second team’ at some point. They have lost and drawn their first two games, and sit 12th of 17 teams in the formative table
No Charlton connections to Sarasota Paradise that I can find, but ex-Blackpool, QPR, West Ham and Man City player Trevor Sinclair is Head Assistant Coach. I remember well this tremendous volley against The Addicks for West Ham in December 2000.
Equally I can’t see any previous connection to US soccer that Sinclair has had. He was doing Talksport work until recently, but took up this role in Sarasota in January.
I lived in Welling for many years; they were my local team. But I mainly played for Old Roan in local leagues. Now I watch Worksop in National League North.
Lived in the DC area for 28 years and while DC United were fun to watch when I arrived in 1997, the last few years (aside from Rooney’s 18 month stay) were pretty painful to watch. I moved to Greenville, SC last summer and decided to buy a season ticket for this year. I too am encouraged by the incoming pro/rel. The Messi-fication of MLS put me off of that ‘product’ once and for all.
*season ticket for the Greenville Triumph of USL League One
I love it. League rivals of my local team. What sort of attendances do they get?
I was chatting with my season ticket rep at the game last night and he said they’ve tripled their season ticket sales this year as they are moving to their own stadium in May, so he thinks around 3,500 to 4,000 per game. Last year they hovered around 2,000 which looked tiny as they were playing in a 15,000 capacity college football stadium (Furman University)
Thats fantastic. Loving some of these new soccer only stadiums in the country.
First Team……….Charlton
Second Team……Charlton Reserves !!!!
When not following Charlton, I,m fully in love with Level 4 football in the Southern Pitching in league South division. My Home Town team is Malvern Town, and currently sitting pretty as second in the league, a record season as the only team in all of the southern leagues to have scored in every game. The furthest South we play is Mousehole in Cornwall and a little bit nearer Falmouth. The standard of football in this league is phenomenal. Our most recent match at Home against Willand United being 2-2 and well into the 80’s minute wise, Malvern bang in 3 goals to win 5-2 ….all credit to Willand the score flattered us.
We have a very tough run in, with last away game against Portishead who just beat Falmouth 7-0.
Last Season Malvern contested the Play off final away at Evesham in front of a record nearly 3,000 crowd but sadly just lost the game. Hopefully this is the year we move up to step 3 football with exciting new enhancements to The Langlands Stadium
Sorry guys just Charlton athletic for me I couldn’t support another team I haven’t got the energy been supporting our lads since 1980 although I have been going to a few Norwch city games with my son recently but still a Charlton nut through and through COYR
I have always followed Kilmarnock from a distance as my Great Grandad ended up in the Woolwich Arsenal from there! In more recent years I have spent a lot of time in Brittany and been to quite a few Guingamp games and have had the luck to see Thiery Racon play for EAG and then the Addicks! As a Plumstead boy in reality, it’s always Charlton !!
When Charlton moved to palace I decided to watch Welling and had a season ticket for around nine very enjoyable years fitting in some Charlton away games when I could.
My opinion at the time was how could I support a team who played all their games away.
Now we have 10 family and friends season tickets next to each other in the east stand.
But Welling is still a team I follow .
I helped Leamington to reform as a phoenix club after being out of existence for over a decade and saw them move up from the lowest level of non-league to tier two (although facing relegation this year after the manager stepped down after 16 years). Became more important as mobility issues stopped me going to The Valley. Also a little cash injection can make a lot of difference, e.g., the chairman asked me to put in £3k during Covid. Would have made no difference at Charlton.
I’ve got three sons who all played semi-pro football, so when they were turning out for different teams I didn’t make it to Charlton on Saturdays for quite a while. My eldest is now involved in professional coaching at Whitstable Town and works with their post-16 academy and JPL sides. During his playing days he featured in the Ryman U21s, the SCEFL Premier and SCEFL divisions, and even played for — and later coached with — Brownie.
My middle son was at Gillingham F.C. until he was 18, so we spent about six years travelling around the Cat 2 academy circuit. That included plenty of pre-season friendlies at Sparrows Lane and academy fixtures at Brighton and Chelsea, as well as an FA Youth Cup tie at Hillsborough. After leaving Gills he also spent three months out in Sweden with Östersunds FK — very much Graham Potter territory. One of his old midfield partners is now captaining Bromley F.C. and could well be playing in League One next season.
Both of them went on to play several seasons in the Isthmian League, SCEFL Premier and SCEFL divisions, so we ended up visiting and watching games at most of the southern non-league grounds over the years.
What I do find surprising these days is that even clubs down at Kent County League level seem to have playing budgets.
I still get along to the odd semi-pro game and keep a close eye on the results and league tables.