When was Lionsbridge founded; why and by whom?
Lionsbridge Football Club was founded in 2017 by a group of three local dads in our neighborhood. Our kids were all playing soccer on rec or travel teams, playing FIFA and watching Premier League games on weekend mornings. But we did not have a professional-style club in our community where we could take our kids to experience a match day. Around this same time, we came across Grant Wahl’s SI story about Dennis Crowley and Stockade FC. The light bulb went on. Stockade was both an inspiration and blueprint for us. We did a lot of homework on Stockade FC, Chattanooga FC, Detroit City, Asheville City, Albuquerque Sol and Tormenta. We combined that with our own sports industry experiences outside of soccer, added our local business relationships and most of all, our desire to create something amazing for our community. Before we ever kicked a ball, we had a ton of community support, several hundred season ticket holders, multiple founding sponsors, and an army of volunteers, interns and host families. When you have that many people working to make something successful, there's a good chance it will happen. It did for us and it’s been an absolutely incredible five years. We can’t wait to see where it goes from here.

Tell us about the name and the badge? Is there a connection to your community?
Yes, the Lionsbridge is an actual location that has been a spectacularly beautiful gathering spot for our community for about 100 years. Locals know the “bridge” is actually a dam inside the Mariners Museum and Park along the James River, which has played a defining role in American history. There are four lion statues on the corners of the bridge and that is where the lion in our badge comes from. The actual Lionsbridge is one of those iconic places that is special to our community and probably not well-known outside of it. That’s just fine with us. We have always said, “we don’t need to be the most popular soccer club in Virginia. We need to be the most popular soccer club in our community.”

Are you part of, or work with, a larger youth club? If not, do you see that as something for the future?
We have always been fully independent and “club-neutral.” We have terrific partnerships with every single youth soccer organization in the area, whether it’s a travel club or a rec league run by a city or county. At every home game, we spotlight a different youth soccer organization. Their kids have a chance to walk out for the national anthem and also to be ball kids. We partner with many of them to run camps in the summer. We do everything we can to support each other. There is more than enough room for everyone to be successful.

What are the club's immediate goals and long term ambitions?
In terms of immediate goals: Last year, we were able to reach the USL League Two playoffs, and host a playoff site, for the first time. The atmosphere for those playoff games was absolutely electric with nearly 2,000 fans on hand. We would love to have that opportunity again in 2022. We also were one point short of making the U.S. Open Cup so getting the chance to compete in the 2023 Open Cup would be incredible. We have ranked in the top three nationally in attendance every year since 2018, but haven’t been number one yet. So that’s on our list, too. Long-range ambitions: Everything we do is rooted in serving our community through soccer. By its nature, soccer is uniquely positioned to bring a community together and we are thrilled to take on that responsibility here on the Virginia Peninsula. We believe the sky's the limit.

If USL were to introduce pro/rel into the system, would you celebrate that or find another league?Philosophically, of course it would be exciting and we love being part of a league that is seriously considering it. In a country of our size and in a league of our size, it’s definitely not a simple execution, but the USL office is very in tune to those challenges. We are fully confident in their ability to chart the right course for the league and its clubs.

As the season approaches, who are you most looking forward to playing? What away days do you have circled on the calendar?
We are in the newly formed Chesapeake Division in USL League Two – entirely in Virginia and Maryland. That will actually take us to new places this year because half of the division is new to USL. So it’ll be our first trip to Christos, Fredericksburg and Patuxent. We haven’t played at Northern Virginia FC since 2018, which was actually the first game in our existence. So that was a special one for us. Virginia Beach United is our biggest rival, a 757 derby, and we’ll be looking to win the Coastal Virginia Challenge Cup for a fourth straight year. So it’s fair to say they’re all circled and both of our supporters’ groups (Defenders of the Bridge and Overtown Ultras) are really excited about the opportunity for more “local” away days.

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Check out their website HERE