Tell us who started the club and what the mission was - is that still the same reason you play now?
The club was founded by a couple of friends who had met and played together in amateur, weeknight leagues (usually 8v8) throughout New York City—Ben Reichner, Charles von Rosenberg, and John Erganian. They, along with a handful of other guys, had enjoyed playing together and wanted to take it to the next level by joining a full field league. So in essence the original mission was really just to have an opportunity to play with a group of people that enjoyed playing together

Even though that wasn’t explicitly a mission statement at the time, that ethos ultimately inspired what has formally become our club mission—to create an environment where people of the highest character and quality can come together and play soccer. This is further enshrined by our unofficial motto “Serious fun” and is the deciding factor in how we recruit and form our rosters. We open our doors to everyone but make it clear that being a good person who can positively contribute to our friendly environment is the top priority. Where we’ve seen clubs lose players that are tired of overly competitive and critical attitudes, we’ve seen great growth from those looking to have fun while they compete.

What league do you currently play in; have you always been in that league?
We play in the 2nd division of the Cosmopolitan Soccer League (CSL), New York City’s largest amateur soccer league that’s been around for almost 100 years and serves 100+ teams across nine divisions. We’ve played every one of our 11v11 seasons in the CSL but have also maintained anywhere from 2-6 smaller groups of club players who compete in the 8v8 leagues throughout NYC.

Relative to many of the clubs in the CSL we’re still young, some of which were founded when the league was almost 100 years ago, but we’ll have our 10 year anniversary this year and are looking forward to many more!

What inspired your badge? What do the elements mean?
The badge has always represented two main things.

First, the bridge is an iconic symbol of Brooklyn, and specifically Williamsburg, where the club was founded. If you’ve been to Williamsburg, you’ll quickly notice its dominance on the skyline, connecting the neighborhood to Manhattan.

Secondly, we liked the concept of the bridge, connecting two places together, as a representation of one of our main club values. We welcome players from all walks of life, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, age, background, etc. If you’re a quality person, that’s the most important thing. The bridge is that symbol connecting each of us to people who may not be like us in every aspect, but who are all around us. That was also an inspiration for including “International” in our name as we have players hailing from countries all across the globe.

Funnily enough, it wasn’t until after using the crest for a few years that the original designer of our logo, a former player, realized he had used images of the Manhattan Bridge, rather than the Williamsburg Bridge, as inspiration for the logo. But we still love it.

Have you had any of your players move on to larger teams or leagues, OR do you have any players who might have come from teams we might have heard of?
We’re still young enough that we haven’t quite achieved the level of sending players off into bigger leagues or teams. We consider ourselves to still be in the early phases of establishing a long-term club in the area. However, given the success we’ve had in a relatively short amount of time, I don’t think it will be long before we can compete with the top clubs and graduate players onto a bigger state.

Many of our current and past players have come from the college level. We have a large contingent that played in Rochester as well as players from Bowdoin, Georgetown, and Duke, among others.

If you could schedule two meaningful friendlies with other teams in the US, who would they be and why?
There are some clubs we have loose connections with that could be interesting. A few of our players shot a short documentary with Harpos FC, a small amateur club from Boulder, CO, who has been really successful, even in the US Open Cup. There’s Guerilla FC in Washington DC which has a couple of WIFC alums. Outside the US, someone like Wirksworth Ivanhoe FC in the UK would be fun since they are eerily similar to us: also go by the “WIFC” abbreviation, similar team structures, in the Central Midlands League, and the same color scheme (Green / Yellow / White).

All that being said, our approach has always been to embrace everyone and all opportunities, so if anyone would like to challenge us, we’d happily take the chance. In the meantime, we’ll keep moving toward the top division in the CSL and competing against those clubs that have been established for decades and even played in the US Open Cup.

How were you impacted by Covid last year and what does success look like in 2021?
Like many clubs, we had to shut down operations and our guys haven’t played together for about a year now. Many of the NYC-based clubs, ourselves included, were also impacted by players leaving the city to avoid COVID. At least temporarily until the concerns are further decreased, we’ve seen our largest drop of returning players.

Luckily, we’ve maintained a very high level of interest from new players and filled our rosters for the spring. Plus, with returning players and the new player interest, we’re on track to start a third team in the fall, providing even more playing opportunities to people in the NYC area.

If we’re able to start a new team and get a full year of soccer in, that’d be a success in my book. With everything happening in the world right now, we consider ourselves fortunate to have the opportunity to continue playing the sport we all love.

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