Why and when were you founded and what league did you begin play in?
The club was created by a group of friends, including myself, that grew up playing for the now extinct Livonia City Soccer Club. We were away at college and upset after hearing about our youth club being no more. We started by playing in a 6v6 league for 2 summers and things were going really well as we went unbeaten for 2 years. We merged with another 6v6 group and were officially founded in 2015 while we were still in college, but took the field for the first time as a club in the Summer of 2016. We spent our first season in the Michigan Premier Soccer League (MIPSL) Open Division and quickly made our way up to the Premier Division the following season. Other than 2020, we have never had a trophy less year.

It looks like you've done some travel to build a reputation and get some experience - tell us about becoming the USASA Region 2 Champion and heading to Florida to play in a tournament.
So far, our most memorable experiences have been during the times we’ve been able to travel for friendlies and cup competitions. We’re up to 10 different states visited and hope to build on that number in 2021 if the world allows it.

The 2018 trip to Kentucky for regionals was quite the experience. It was a little weird how we ended up going since we had an off year in MIPSL league play. Even though we were selected as the “alternative team” to represent the league and state, we had an absolutely incredible weekend on the field as we finished the weekend as Region 2 champions after winning all our matches except for a group stage tie.

By winning regionals, we were selected to represent the Midwest at USASA Nationals in Bradenton, Florida at the incredible complex they have down there. We finished 3rd overall, which we were very proud of since we were up against some high-quality clubs, including Christos FC who eventually won it all. We are proud to have both trophies in our trophy case.

Are you connected to a youth program - or are you strictly adult amateur soccer?
Currently, we are strictly an adult amateur club but we have added a men’s U23 team which will be the future of our program. Many of these players are younger college players waiting in the wings for their opportunity at first team minutes. We were blessed to have several of our U23 prospects compete for the first team in some of our 2020 friendlies.

You're not just a men's team though - what league do your women play in and did they form at the same time as the men?
That’s right! We launched our women’s side in 2018 in the Great Lakes Women’s League, before making the move to the MIPSL to join our men’s team. Now, we’re in the newly formed UWS League 2 and we were lucky enough to be part of the UWS Showcase at Keyworth against DCFC, Lansing United, and Midwest United as the lone UWS2 representative. In our short history, our women’s side have been state cup runners up in 2019, but we are excited for what the future holds as we continue to grow. In our eyes, we now feel like a proper club by having both a men’s and women’s side. Going forward, we will keep both our women’s and men's development teams in the MIPSL for the foreseeable future.

I see that you've got some custom kits coming soon with Hope and Glory - they look great! What prompted that and should we expect more merch?
They are great! We’ve partnered with H&G Sportswear who are based in Oldham, England. We discovered them on social media and thought they would be a great fit due to the awesome designs they’ve done so far with other clubs, as well as their EcoKit option which are made from recycled plastic. It’s a really cool initiative and will commit to having all our players in the EcoKit, while also having it as an option for fans.

We’ve also partnered with another company that will be our merchandise supplier which we’ll announce shortly. Both our jerseys and merch will be available on our new website that we hope to have finished in the next month or so.

There is an absolute ton of good soccer in Michigan; who do you see as a rival and are they in the same league or is it sort of a regional thing and you'll only play them in tournaments or exhibitions?
You’re right, the soccer scene in Michigan is pretty crazy. Don’t expect it to slow down any time soon either. Since we’ve started, Detroit United has always been a main rival for us. Both clubs circle the fixtures against each other on the calendar. We’ve had some really competitive matches that have included wins and losses in the 120’ minute and red cards for both sides. While there has been chipiness, we know games against United mean a lot to our guys and there’s mutual respect between both groups of players. It sucked that we couldn’t play them in 2020 and it’s disappointing that they won’t be in our league this season either. Maybe we can figure out a way to play them in a friendly.

While we can’t say they’re our rivals because we’re winless against them so far, we do consider Milwaukee Bavarians as “Frenemies”. We came close to beating them for the first time in our most recent matchup when we led 2-0 going into halftime. Unfortunately, we collapsed and let the Bavs tie it up late in stoppage time for a 2-2 final, which showed their confidence and the type of club they are . That being said, we do get along really well with them off the field. To put it simply, we want to beat them every time but also look forward to sharing a beer (or 2) with them after a game. They’re an incredible club with a long history that we aspire to be like on the field and we hope to get our revenge against them in the MWPL finals this year.

Although they haven’t even played a game yet, we are looking forward to going up against Lansing Common due to the fact that they’ve done an awesome job in their launch and already have built quite the following. We’re excited for continued banter on Twitter and competitive matchups. Oh yeah, we also hate them. Does that make us rivals now?

This season will be big for us. We hope things will be smoother in 2021, but are conscious of the fact that we could be in for another challenging year. If things go as we hope, we’ll have a home field to host matches for our UWS2 and MWPL teams with an actual game day atmosphere. We’ll have an expanded coaching staff and no matter how the year goes, we are working on a major project behind the scenes that we hope to share publicly in the coming months! Here’s to 2021 and everyone getting to enjoy some lower league soccer