Could Washington Be the American London?

Met­ro­pol­i­tan Wash­ing­ton DC has quickly grown from a South­ern accented back­wa­ter which hap­pened to be the nation’s capi­tol before A/C, to per­haps the most cos­mopoli­tan and pub­lic tran­sit friendly met­ro­pol­i­tan area in the United States. The area that con­tains the nation’s cap­i­tal as well as a vibrant pri­vate sec­tor also boasts a more vibrant cul­ture around foot­ball than any other in the coun­try. With many immi­grants from Africa, Asia and Latin Amer­ica, the DC Metro area has a leg up on devel­op­ing tal­ent over just about any other US area.

Other areas includ­ing (but not lim­ited to) Chicagoland, New Jer­sey, South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, St Louis and South Florida do develop their fair share of capa­ble ama­teurs and pro­fes­sion­als. But the DC area stands apart not only in its devel­op­ment of play­ers from immi­grant com­mu­ni­ties, but also because of the local sup­port and infra­struc­ture in the region related to the game.

DC United has been the most suc­cess­ful fran­chise in MLS since the league’s incep­tion. With great inten­sity of fan sup­port than any other fran­chise that began play in the league’s first decade, bet­ter local media pen­e­tra­tion than any other MLS side, bet­ter access to the games through pub­lic tran­sit and more inter­na­tional achieve­ments than the rest of the league’s teams com­bined, United is with­out ques­tion except from very biased fans, the sig­na­ture team of Major League Soc­cer. In fact, to steal another team’s slo­gan, United is the true gold stan­dard for MLS and the pro­fes­sional game in America.

As some­one who has worked my entire adult life either in or with the pub­lic sec­tor, Wash­ing­ton DC was for many years like a sec­ond home to me. I know the area like the back of my hand, and believe the cul­tural and eth­nic makeup of the area is a large rea­son why DC United is so suc­cess­ful (the sta­dium con­tro­versy not with­stand­ing) and why the area pro­vides the most fer­tile prov­ing grounds for the game both pro­fes­sional and ama­teur in the United States.

Con­sider the cap­i­tal of the United King­dom, the coun­try we take per­haps too much of our foot­balling inspi­ra­tion from: Foot­ball sup­port isn’t as a fanat­i­cal in Lon­don as it is in Eng­lish parts fur­ther north, but club sides of dif­fer­ent sizes and qual­ity exist through­out the city and its sur­round­ing areas. Wash­ing­ton DC rep­re­sents the clos­est fac­sim­ile we have to Lon­don in the United States: a national cap­i­tal, a global cos­mopoli­tan mix of peo­ples  and very good pub­lic tran­sit. New York City also comes close but the area is in many ways too busy and pub­lic tran­sit not good enough in parts of New Jer­sey to rep­re­sent the same model.

Much of London’s foot­balling sup­port is local even though some front run­ners in the city pre­fer to cheer on Man­ches­ter United or Liv­er­pool. The point is that Wash­ing­ton DC is devel­op­ing neigh­bor­hood sup­port for what are essen­tially neigh­bor­hood sides. New York has the same poten­tial thanks to the Red Bulls and with FC New York enter­ing USL-1 play next year as well as PDL sides spread across North­ern New Jer­sey and Long Island. But the Wash­ing­ton area is fur­ther along also because of the fan­tas­tic suc­cess of local col­leges and the fer­tile ground they pro­vides for PDL and USL sides.

The Washington/Baltimore Metro area cur­rently has the best sup­ported US based MLS team, two USL-2 teams and sev­eral top col­lege pro­grams as well as PDL sides that feed off the local col­leges. Here is a list and the part of the region they represent.

DC United

United, the most suc­cess­ful pro­fes­sional club in the United States draws fans from all over the region and as far south as Florida whose MLS teams were con­tracted in 2001.

Real Mary­land

The USL-2 club oper­ates out of Mont­gomery County draw­ing a largely sub­ur­ban Mary­land audi­ence. The team also has the best TV cov­er­age for any USL-2 side.

Crys­tal Palace USA

Based just out­side Bal­ti­more and affil­i­ated iron­i­cally with London’s old­est pro­fes­sional club, Palace USA has devel­oped a fol­low­ing in just four sea­sons of active play.

North­ern Vir­ginia Royals

A PDL side based in Man­as­sas that has been highly suc­cess­ful since its incep­tion the club’s 1998 incep­tion. The Roy­als draw fans largely from Fair­fax County, and has devel­oped through the years a rela­tion­ship with DC United. Troy Perkins in fact was loaned to the Roy­als from United when he was back­ing up Nicky Rimando in 2004.

Fredricks­burg Gunners

About 45 miles south of Wash­ing­ton DC but much closer to the sub­ur­ban sprawl of North­ern Vir­ginia, this club began PDL play in 2006.

The WPS Wash­ing­ton Free­dom and the USL W-League’s North­ern Vir­ginia Majes­tics sup­port the local woman’s game as do count­less col­lege programs.

JUST OUTSIDE THE AREA

Rich­mond Kickers

The for­mer US Open Cup Cham­pi­ons are just over an hours drive from the Dis­trict of Colum­bia, but much closer to some of Vir­ginia sub­urbs. The for­mer A-League power which fea­tured among other Dwayne DeRosario and has also won the US Open Cup, now plays in USL-2.

Williams­burg Legacy

Founded in 2002 and plays in the PDL

Hamp­ton Roads Piranhas

The suc­ces­sor team to the long­time A-League Vir­ginia Beach franchise.

LOCAL COLLEGES

Among the most suc­cess­ful col­lege soc­cer pro­grams in the nation, the Uni­ver­sity of Mary­land is located inside the Cap­i­tal Belt­way in Col­lege Park. Other major col­lege soc­cer pro­grams in the area include George Mason, George­town, Amer­ica, Howard, James Madi­son, Maryland-Baltimore County,  and Navy. The pow­er­ful Vir­ginia Cav­il­ers and William& Mary pro­grams are not far from Wash­ing­ton DC either.

With so many local club and col­lege sides to sup­port, many play­ing at a very high level in their respec­tive leagues, the Wash­ing­ton DC met­ro­pol­i­tan area has proven it can sup­port the game at a level pre­vi­ously unknown in the United States.  The DC area can pro­vide a model hav­ing a mas­sive Major League fran­chise com­pli­mented by sev­eral smaller local club and ama­teur sides in neigh­bor­hoods and father flung parts of the met­ro­pol­i­tan area.