When and why were you founded? What's your origin story?
Deer Park Rangers was founded in Louisville in January 2017, when we signed up for our first session at Mockingbird Valley Sports Complex. It’s a tale familiar to many recreational indoor teams I would imagine: a group of friends decided to start a team as a way to stay social, get exercise, and have a competitive outlet. What’s special about DPR is it’s turned into more than a group that just gets together one night a week–in many ways it’s more like a social club. Early on we latched onto the Louisville soccer social media scene, which helped a lot in getting our name out there and showing that we cared about being a part of the local soccer community. We’ve done things like host tailgates for our professional teams, volunteer at a local community center in coordination with Louisville City FC, and many of us (who met through DPR) hang out when we’re not playing together. Also, our Twitter presence has provided us a great way to interact with other non-League teams and share our pseudo-professional kit reveals, which have gained local and national attention on Uniform Twitter™. And now that Mockingbird is streaming and recording our games we can share actual footage of our matches!

Before we started DPR I remember reading articles about how, in general, a person’s social circle shrinks as they get into their mid-late 20s, and I wondered if DPR would help offset that… It undoubtedly has. We and our families have friends now that we never would have met otherwise if it hadn’t been for DPR.

What league do you currently play in; is there a scenario where you get bigger and join a larger league?
We currently play in the Social division in the Open league at Mockingbird. It’s possible we could also start playing in one of the recreational outdoor leagues run by our USL team (Louisville City FC), but in any event we plan on sticking at this level.

Outside of the team you all play for, is there a local grassroots team you follow or support? What's the soccer scene like there?
Louisville’s soccer scene has blossomed in the last few years. Louisville City FC (USL) has been a local hit since it was founded in 2014 and last year we welcomed Racing Louisville FC (NWSL), Louisville’s first top-level professional sports teams in decades. The two teams share a brand new state-of-the-art stadium that opened last year, and many DPR members have season tickets. We also put on several tailgates a year.

Your new kit is gorgeous, what made you want to work with Icarus and did you expect strangers to want to buy it?
We stumbled across IcarusFC on Twitter and Reddit via a couple other non-League teams across the country, most notably hometown club Metro Louisville FC. Their designs are top notch and are some of the most innovative kit designs in the world (no hyperbole). Their easy-to-use platform and customer service match their creativity–they initially came to the table with kits that resembled jockey silks, which showed they researched our club and tried to tie our kits in with what Louisville is known for. Jonny and Robby at IcarusFC were awesome to work with, and we’ll definitely be collaborating with them in the future on our next kits.

Overall we were a little surprised that it received so much outside interest, but at a time when mystery kit companies are so successful it makes sense. We have to agree: it’s a beautiful kit. In partnership with IcarusFC, our kits will be sent out via various mystery kit companies so be on the lookout for DPR kits across the globe.

You'll look good on the pitch, but how's your performance? Where are you in the standings and do you have friends and family show up to cheer you on?
We’ve experienced a recent downturn in performances -- this is the first time we’ve been in the lowest Tuesday league in a couple of years. (The pandemic certainly didn’t help our fitness levels.) We had a really sweet run in 2019 where we won the regular season and tournament in the second division and even briefly had a competitive run in the top division in the Open league. Hopefully we’ll reach those heights again soon! It feels like half our team has become fathers over the last year, so at least we’re expanding our family cheering section or adding members to the DPR Youth Academy. Usually we only have a few in attendance, but now that Mockingbird is streaming our games we’ll just trust that our friends and family are following along from home.

Follow Deer Park Rangers on Twitter HERE