When they first kicked a ball in anger, they were not yet the Hounds - but then they saw the Light… which was shone on them by the league, and changed name. With charitable causes in mind and self-sustaining efforts in place, this team is community-minded and a fun way to blow off steam for the busy men of Tinton Falls, NJ.

Tell us the origin story of your club - when was the club founded? By whom and what was its mission?
The club was founded in 2024 by Andrew Mato. The club was formerly the Monmouth Light FC reserve team from 2022-2024 and we broke away because the league we had been playing in was threatening to make a ruling banning one club from having multiple teams in the league. So despite playing in different divisions within the league, the decision was made to break away to ensure the league couldn't rule against us and we had a place to play. Despite the league never following through with the ruling, we remained separate and even compete against MLFC now.

Tell us about your badge and colors – how does it connect to the community and has it evolved over time or always been the same?
We play in Tinton Falls, NJ about 15 minutes from the beach, and almost all our players either live or grew up in the surrounding area. The team has two players that designed our crest and our jerseys from scratch, emphasizing obviously dogs. The club did that because we planned to do fundraising for the local animal shelter (Jersey Shore Animal Hospital).

What league or leagues does your club participate in and why did you choose those to join?
Last year we played in the Garden State Soccer League, finishing runners up. This Fall and coming Spring we will participate in the CASA Central NJ League that I am the commissioner off and we stood up this year.

Many clubs choose to sell hats, scarves or replica kits - how does your club keep the lights on and cover its league costs?
We have a team store through one of our players' design job at a screen printing shop. We maintain a domain for part of the year and order merch through their website. We really only make a very small amount on that and its more meant for the guys to be able to get affordable merch for themselves. Any fundraisers we've done always go to charity and we pay our own way for our league fees.

How did you finish last year? What are the goals for this season?
Last year we finished second in the GSSL B Central Division. We ended up losing in the first round of the playoffs, but it was a really strong first year for us. We hope to surprise a few of the teams in our new league that came from higher competition, and we started the season hot last sunday (9/7) with a 4-0 Win at home.

How do you participate in, or give back to your community?
So far we have done a few fundraisers in our first year as a club. We did a food drive around Thanksgiving time for the Fulfill NJ Food Bank ( Monmouth County Food Bank), collecting 112 lbs of food in our first fundraising effort. We then ran a super bowl box fundraiser this past year, raising $400 dollars to donate to the Jersey Shore Animal Hospital. We weren't able to pull together a fundraising event yet this Fall, but we are planning a foot golf outing for the spring and a 5v5 tournament in the summer with the goal of raising some more substantial funds for organizations local to us.

As well as fundraisers we made sure to partner with our friends and family's small businesses to get their logos on our jerseys. Our House Restaurant and Banquet Facility and Grassroots Athletic Co., our main shirt sponsors, helped us cover part of our jersey costs when we started up and have been immensely helpful in starting the club. We've also gotten so much support from our friends bakery (Etiquette Bakehouse) and our friends Podcast (The Loyalist Podcast) that we feel so lucky to have them as shirt sponsor, and to work to raise funds and give back to our community any way we can, because they've always been so good to us.

If there were one or two teams, within a 100 miles of you, to play a friendly against – who would you play and why?
If I could have us play one game, it would be against our friends at Monmouth light at the nicest field we could get our hands on. Those guys helped us a lot, and Oscar and Joey are good dudes.

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