Tell us who started the club and what the mission was - is that still the same reason you play now?
Worcester County Football Club was founded in 2017 by my twin brother, Brian Norman, and myself Colin. When we moved from the Chicago suburbs to Worcester, MA in November 2016 we wanted to continue to play football. Over the next few months, we discovered that there was only one team in Central MA and struggled to find a competitive team that would take us on that wasn't over an hour drive time for home games. Since there are 6 colleges in Worcester with soccer programs and another 3 or 4 in central MA, we knew that there had to be other people like us looking to play locally. So, in the summer of 2017 the Stags were born with the initial mission of providing a competitive club to the region. Our goal now is to grow the club as a whole to offer multiple men's and women's squads as well as eventually introducing a youth setup in order to provide opportunity and availability of the beautiful game here in central MA to all ages and demographics.

What league do you currently play in; have you always been in that league?
We have been playing in the Bay State Soccer League (BSSL) since we played our first competitive game in spring 2018.

What inspired your badge? What do the elements mean?
We went through a few different club names/nicknames but none of them felt right. Once we came up with the club name, we did some research about central MA and found that the official seal of the County of Worcester contained a stag. We wanted our crest to be simple and took inspiration from Derby County F.C. from the Championship in England.

If you could schedule two meaningful friendlies with other teams in the US, who would they be and why?Although we plan on one day playing them competitively, the first team would have to be Providence City Football Club. When we started WCFC we reached out to a number of clubs in New England and BSSL for advice. Jason Rego of the Rogues was kind enough to reply and gave us advice that helped us get the club off the ground.

The second team would have to be DeKalb County Football Club as they are close to our hometown and have the same appreciation for growing the game that we have.

How were you impacted by Covid last year and what does success look like in 2021?
Overall, COVID didn't impact our club that much. In fact, interest in the club grew more in 2020 than ever. BSSL held a shortened season with a 4-team playoff for every division. We made it to the final but lost 3-2 to a late goal. Throughout the summer we held 3-4 open and socially distanced practices a week which has allowed us to be able to start a Reserve team for the upcoming 2021 campaign.

Success in 2021 to the Stags would mean winning our first piece of silverware. Two years ago, we missed out on automatic promotion and the league title by a single point and last year as described above we also just missed out. We've got a slightly sore feeling about both of those and strive to do better this year.

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