Announcing our role as an affiliate member of



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Announcing our role as an affiliate member of

PA DOMINION

Over the past several years there have been a multitude of changes to the youth soccer landscape, most of which impact negatively on the smaller, community-based programs. Obviously the US Soccer mandate from school-year to calendar year age groupings created havoc to most programs, causing the break-up and reformatting of most teams. Larger programs were much more capable of coping with this change than clubs who had a much smaller pool of players. More significant are the policies that have created and favored the creation of developmental academies. These programs generally promise more to their players than they are capable of delivering and require complete and total commitment to their programs, preventing participants from also playing for their community clubs and even high school programs.


In addition to the above hardships, smaller clubs also face the struggles of fielding teams at the older age groups. As players progress to 11v11 age groups (U13 and above), it becomes more and more difficult to field teams. As players get older, there is a normal attrition from all youth sports (not just soccer). In addition, some players opt to just play school ball or go to chase the “riches” promised by academies and high profile club programs. Younger age groups who play 7v7 and 9v9 find themselves needing to carry more players than needed, just in hopes of being able to maintain rosters at 11v11 when 16+ rosters are generally needed to sustain a team. Larger clubs can field multiple teams at an age group and just merge those teams together as the teams get older…..but smaller clubs don’t have that luxury. This leads to much anxiety at tryouts each year, as teams are hoping to have enough players to field a team, often scrambling after tryouts to try and find additional players from teams who were not able to stay together just in the hopes of survival.
This past year, our club was very fortunate to be able to field six teams who played 11v11. We were one of the few local clubs to actually increase our numbers at the older ages, but even with this increase we had no girls teams above U14 and most of our teams needed the help of secondary players from other teams to make sure they had enough players on their rosters. Each of these teams facing the same reality; should a couple of players decide to leave or stop playing, the team could fail to exist. And when this happens, it means that while a handful of players will be fortunate enough to find another team to play for, many on the roster will simply just stop playing club ball. Neighboring clubs face the same fears, concerns and experiences.
Over the past few months, leaders of some of these clubs have been exploring unique and innovative ways to keep our programs relevant without losing our identities, keep as many players as possible playing, and meet the needs of the exceptional player who need challenges above what the average club team can offer. Through these discussions, we are proud to announce the formation of PA Dominion. PA Dominion is an affiliation of Valley Soccer Club, Harleysville Soccer Club and Boyertown Soccer Club. We believe that this program will allow us to share player pools, training resources, facilities and organizational ideas that can benefit everyone.

At the U12 and below levels, nothing will change in the structure of our program. Each club will continue to field their independent travel teams and programs. At the U13 and above levels, PA Dominion will look to offer a single team per age group comprised of stronger players who desire a more challenging and competitive environment. Our hope is that the players who in past years have disappeared to other perceived higher level programs (many considerable distances away) will instead opt to stay local in an environment that will not restrict or dictate their involvement in community based activities. It will also allow the affiliated clubs to pool players, so instead of having three groups of players (none of which are large enough to field a team on their own), we can field one or two teams under the flag of one of the three clubs, allowing these players the opportunity to continue to play.


It should also be noted that no teams will be forced to send their players to PA Dominion. If a team of players is perfectly happy playing as a Valley, Boyertown or Harleysville club team, they have the option to do so without any interference from the PA Dominion program. The option to participate will be that of the individual player, based on what they are looking for in a team. The PA Dominion teams will be designed for a more committed player wishing to play at a higher level, so it will not be for everyone.
As the PA Dominion affiliation grows, we envision addition benefits, such as;

  • Opportunities to train with PA Dominion teams or receive training from PA Dominion coaches

  • Programs for younger players to participate in outdoor/indoor festivals (similar to our ADVANCE program)

  • Sponsorship of a local league which will allow our younger teams to avoid journeys of 1-2 hours just to play a single league game.

Obviously these are not benefits that are going to happen in the first couple years of the program, but they are some long-term goals PA Dominion has.
Will there be growing pains and problems encountered as we navigate through the formation of the PA Dominion program? Yes. Like anything new, there will be difficulties and unexpected things that will test the levels of cooperation between the clubs. However, we are confident that the leadership of this program will be able to fairly deal with and solve issues that will arise. One of the reasons we are confident in this is that each affiliated club will have equal representation on the board of directors running the program. So Valley, Harleysville and Boyertown will all have equal seats at the table. This is unique structure is that in most cases, clubs tend to merge into one organization, with one club providing the bulk of the leadership and the members losing their individual identities.
With the three clubs now committed to their PA Dominion affiliation, there is significant work to be done in the next few weeks. As of right now, we don’t have all the answers, but we will we have a say in establishing the organization’s policies and procedures. PA Dominion tryouts are scheduled for April 21st (tentatively scheduled for the turf fields at Souderton High School. As we have more information, we will be providing updates to our membership.
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