When you look at the Alabama, you don’t expect there to be a big soccer presence due to the heavy college football influence that is the University of Alabama and Auburn University. But, clubs like AFC Mobile and those on the Gulf Coast have been changing that view. Now it seems that the passion in the south is making its way to northern Alabama.

Prior to the Thanksgiving and holiday period, I got the opportunity to talk with the President of North Alabama FC. What I learned has me excited for the future of both the soccer scene in Alabama and the future of lower league soccer in the country.

Without further ado, I present to you the pride of Huntsville, North Alabama FC.

Can you give us some background on yourself?

I'm Brian Foy. I am a father of two soccer playing daughters, a soccer fan, and love serving our soccer club. I have served on the Board of Directors since 2014 and served as President since 2017.

My professional background is in the software industry. I am currently the Service Delivery Executive at a Huntsville-based solutions provider for the financial services and banking industry.

I see that there is a solid developmental system set up. What made you decide to jump up another level and add NPSL?

We are very proud of our youth development system that has prepared our players to succeed at the next level. Our decision to add an NPSL team was to provide an enhanced player development pathway for our local club, high school, college, and adult players and provide the North Alabama soccer community with a higher-level soccer experience.

I’ll be honest, I never thought of Northern Alabama as a huge soccer area. Can you tell us how big the soccer scene really is in the Huntsville area?

North Alabama is an inspired soccer community. While football is the sport of choice in our State (Roll Tide and War Eagle), North Alabama has soccer in its DNA. Our soccer community is made up of more than 1,200 adult soccer league players and thousands more youth players participating in competitive club and recreational soccer. This does not include the local high school soccer community that fields some of the most competitive teams in the State and the three local universities: Alabama A&M University, Oakwood University, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) that field sanctioned soccer teams. Huntsville also hosts the annual Alabama State High School Soccer Championship. Each May since 2002, this three-day event welcomes thousands of local soccer-crazed fans and families to cheer on teams from across the State.

We experienced something truly magical last summer. Our soccer community really demonstrated how much it loves and supports local soccer by the way they embraced our new WPSL team. Our fans created the best matchday experience in the WPSL Southeast Conference. We even led the conference in attendance for our inaugural season - averaging 285 fans per game. We are excited about next season and cannot wait to see how North Alabama embraces and supports our new NPSL team.

Where do you plan on having home matches?

Our home matches will be played at the John Hunt Park Championship Soccer Stadium in Huntsville. It is an awesome venue for soccer. The stadium has two identical natural grass fields. Each lighted fields measures 80x120 yards and can accommodate up to 1,000 spectators.

With the current cycle of clubs closing down or relocating due to costs, do you feel that the model you and the club have in place is something that is sustainable for the next 5-10 years?

As a non-profit club, our NPSL team's financial sustainability is based on a self-supported, break-even model without the profitability burden experienced by teams that may have a more traditional ownership model. Based on our WPSL experience last summer, we are confident that our club is positioned for a sustained entry in the NPSL. Our true measurement of success will be our player development results and further connecting with our soccer community - being the hub for North Alabama soccer families, players, and fans.

Even though the club is just starting, are there any clubs you’d consider as rivals?

The Southeast Conference is very competitive, but given the short distance between our clubs, Inter Nashville FC looks like it will become an instant rival for us. We may need to go ahead and buy one of those big fancy trophies for the inaugural I-65 Derby.

What are the goals for the club in year one?

Our year one goals are to field a team that is a reflection of our local soccer community and can compete for 90-minutes with the established teams in the Southeast Conference, create an engaging and second-to-none matchday experience for our fans, and, most importantly, we want have fun - a lot of fun!

Are there any long term goals you’d like to share?

Our long-term goal is to position ourselves to consistently compete for NPSL Southeast Conference and Regional Championships. And, who knows, maybe one day qualify for the Open Cup.

Lastly, is there anything else you’d like people to know about the club that wasn’t covered?

We held a fan vote during our inaugural WPSL season last summer to select our club mascot - and the winner was Gravity. We can't wait to hear all of our fans chanting Go Gravity next season!

Gavin, what's your position with the club and what's your soccer story?

I am the creator and manager of Black Bear FC. I grew up in Birmingham and played at a few different youth clubs competing at recreation to the highest competitive teams. I fell in love with soccer from the beginning and haven’t looked back since. When it came time to decide whether or not I wanted to play in college, I chose to pursue coaching instead while getting my degree. I’ve made it my mission to do everything I can to improve soccer in my home state from the way we develop our players to how we grow the sport at the grassroots level as I hope to see the United States win a World Cup within my lifetime. I’m currently a youth coach for Homewood Soccer Club and perform various roles for Alabama Soccer Association.

Black Bear FC, what's the story on your name?

In the end, the story isn’t anything spectacular. I didn’t want the team name to be specific to Birmingham alone simply because we don’t want to be compared to Legion FC. I knew that the name had to be something that represented Alabama, but didn’t piggyback off of our industrial past. I googled a few facts about Alabama and found out that the state animal is a black bear. I thought this was fitting because it represents Alabama but is different than any other sports team that uses Birmingham’s industrial reputation.

What's the soccer scene like in Birmingham?

Contrary to popular belief, Alabama is not just an American football state. Yes, soccer is still in the minority, however, the natural growth of the game around the country happened here as well. From 2012-2017, Alabama was the fastest growing state in terms of player registration. Registration is starting to slow down though and a big reason is that the youth clubs and our state association aren’t able to service every member properly due to a shortage of coaches, referees, and administrators. Adult soccer has seen the same growth and registration peak. We currently have a few leagues in the Birmingham area that are run by youth clubs as well as smaller independent leagues. The leagues ran by youth clubs are the most established and range from a handful of 11v11 teams to an unspecified amount of 7v7 teams. The independent leagues are run by those who have access to some field space not owned by a club or city. Entry into these leagues is currently tricky with someone having to know someone else to get any information. Because a lack of public information currently serves as a barrier, adult registration as a whole is currently falling.

All of that said, the edition of Birmingham Legion FC, formerly Birmingham Hammers, will certainly help peak interest again and introduce more families to the game. I’m hopeful that there will be a spike in registration again among youth players as well as adults. The next step is to figure out how to prevent the player registration from falling again and I hope that Black Bear FC can play some part in that by serving the next generation of life long participants in soccer.

You're an independent, what's your plan for this year for matches?

We’re currently in talks with few other local teams about setting up some friendlies. Because we’re independent, and adult soccer participation here is strictly word of mouth, it’s been tricky to get in contact with the right people. However, I feel that we are making progress and we hope to release some dates soon for our games.

Long-term what's the plan?

Our long term plan is to serve as a first team for a youth club as well as play in a local league that is independent of a youth club. I know that myself and other people I grew up playing with would’ve loved to play for a club that had a first team. Even if that first team played in an average adult league, it would’ve been something we wanted to be a part of. I want to give players something to look forward to that serves as a stepping stone to college or even just another opportunity to play the game they love. Furthermore, I feel that for the growth of adult soccer here to reach new heights, a league that is independent of a youth club is absolutely necessary. Being independent of the youth clubs would allow the growth of league to be guided by those who are interested in the greater good of the game rather than filling their own pockets.

Do you have a roster together yet? Any players you'd like to highlight?

We’re currently a group of guys that are around the college age with some going off to play in college and others that work normal jobs on top of school. We’ll be doing player profiles soon that will be released over the summer so keep an eye on our social media pages for those. All in all, we’re always interested in finding more people that just love to play so if you’re in the Birmingham area and want to get involved feel free to reach out!

Without much other contact with clubs, what's your social media strategy to connect with other clubs/leagues/fans?

Because there simply aren’t any other amateur clubs with a public identity in Birmingham, our main connectivity with other teams has been by word of mouth. In the long run, a byproduct of us having a public identity will hopefully be that other teams create one as well. Our current social media strategy includes following and liking posts from local businesses, youth clubs, and other prominent members in the amateur soccer “Twitter-sphere.” We’ve had some success in getting the attention of local businesses and my hope is to eventually spark a sponsorship deal.

Anything else we should know about BBFC?

Our mission statement is as follows, we are committed to supporting local players, connecting with local businesses, and giving our growing soccer community another way to come together. We want to provide as much exposure for adult soccer here as we can and hopefully inspire others to follow a similar path by having a public identity. I want people to see what we’re doing and say, “Wow, that’s awesome. I’m gonna create my own team.”

You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter @bbearfc and like us on Facebook at Black Bear FC. Also, shoutout to Jessica Do for the logo design (give her a follow on Twitter at @Jayy_Doe).