| SAN JOSE FROGS FRANCHISE IS CLOSING DOWN-Reason is lack of community interest in top amateur soccer |
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| on 25 Aug 2008 | |
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Our country is going about this wrong. The clubs need to develop their own top amateur teams. A club already has a built in fan base for amateur soccer. They then need to use players from the club, primarily, to make the club members identify with the team. Creating teams with players from Northern California......who can identify with that? BZ Reason is lack of community interest in top amateur soccer. Building a vibrant soccer community was one of our prime motivations - next to offering players a high-level amateur opportunity. With our move to James Lick High School and the support of the School Districts in promoting the Frogs, we had hoped that we could extend our fan base beyond the 100+ we had at PAL Stadium in 2007. And we were putting in a huge effort: We sent out 12.000 fliers combined with joint fundraising programs for the schools in East San Jose such as free tickets for Lick students and their families, we went to flea markets and several community events, and we sent out thousands of eMails with discounted or even free tickets to youth soccer clubs and more. And we also succeeded to get our games into the local mainstream media. Sadly enough, our 2007 season showed a near-total collapse in fan interest: after we could build some solid following in 2006 and 2007, attendance beyond our players‚ families and friends went down to less then 20 tickets sold per home game (still a big thanks for those few who came to our home games). The ironic fact is that everything else was very good: USL/PDL is America‚s top amateur soccer league with perfect management and seamless support and we played against very good teams, which resulted in great soccer and sometimes even dramatic suspense. By our own judgment, our home games were on a better technical level and more exciting to watch then what MLS showed off in San Jose so far. And the FROGS closed out their 2007 season with two fantastic wins at home against Bakersfield and at the San Francisco Seals. We want to thank all our staff and volunteers, especially manager and head coach Peter Weiss, manager Aaron Castro, coach Sherman Trigg, trainer Dr. Dave Bennett, the game day operators under Brian Holmes‚ „Soccer International‰ leadership, the former coaches Jorge Espinoza, Charlie Hatfield, Franco Benevento, Joe Silvera, the volunteers Bente Palouda, Jeannette Schwarz, Sheryl Castro, Bob Weinman, Cheryl VanZuylen, the Fleming family, Tom Morman, Tulin Mendoza and the management of James Lick High School. A special thanks goes to our equipment sponsor UNDER ARMOUR. Finally, we want to thank our players for having been a wonderful group with lots of talent and great sportsmanship. After we had ten players drafted by MLS and European clubs in 2007, we wish our players a similar success in 2008. |
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