Birth of high school soccer might finally be a reality in Chester

CHESTER Alyssa Radu wasnt sure until last week that this would be the year for Chester varsity soccer.

Thats partly because last year wasnt, either.

The pronouncement by the Philadelphia Union that high school soccer had returned to Chester was five years ago.

That celebratory first JV contest in the fall of 2019 is sufficiently distant that no one present could have eligibility left.

It was one Chester High athletic director, one Chester mayoral administration, several Chester-Upland School District superintendents and one global pandemic ago.

And yet, the return of soccer to Chester has been less a grand arrival as a grappling with the realities of high school athletics in an under-resourced district.

So it wasnt until last weeks first game of the season that Radu, the Philadelphia Union Foundations Director of Charitable Programs and Operations and a former Division I college coach, felt sure the Clippers would have the bodies to navigate a tentative eight-game varsity slate in the Del Val League.

Even if the scoreboard at the WSFS Sportsplex in the shadow of Subaru Park Tuesday afternoon read an 8-0 victory for Academy Park, Radu left it feeling a measure of triumph.

For us to be able to bring soccer back to Chester after 30-plus years, to play PIAA games last Tuesday and then to another one Thursday and another one today, were winning, she said.

We cant be more excited about this.

Chester is chasing another consequential step on a long pathway.

After more than a decade of regimes assuming a build-it-and-they-will-come approach, a more honed tack is creating results.

The headlines came in 2019, with flashy jerseys, a community day at then-Talen Energy Stadium and the front office bussed to STEM Academy to watch the Clippers first fledgling efforts.

Then came a pandemic, where soccer seemed frivolous among the dire challenges many families in the district faced.

The fall of 2020 disappeared.

Chester didnt field a varsity team in 2021, then played a four-game slate in 2022, all losses, by a combined score of 34-2.

That was still better than last fall, when numbers were insufficient for a varsity squad.

That has long been the toughest battle.

Previous directors of this quest from the Union dreamt of mining Chester for a homegrown first-teamer.

Theyve presumed rolling out the balls at a prime facility would send kids running.

But that overlooked the reality of how few people in Chester had an interest in soccer.

Only when the Union Foundation recently pivoted to providing youth opportunities to build a population of potential high school players could it begin to be sustainable.

Obena James felt that when he moved into the district in middle school.

Born in Liberia and raised on soccer fields with friends and family, the senior midfielder was shocked to see such paltry interest in the sport in his new home.

When I first moved here, I found out people didnt really care about soccer, he said.

Then I started seeing my brothers on the team, they really liked soccer, they love the sport.

I was like, I finally found someone that I can really combine with and connect with because we love the same sport.

That helped me out a lot.

It opened up new bonds and new friendships.

Radu recognized that gap when she was hired in May 2023.

Last fall, she helped the foundation launch its Chester Soccer Initiative, which offered free soccer to boys and girls in the district.

The Chester Union program has teams from U-8 through high school, plus a U-19 team to keep high schoolers engaged after they graduate.

Some 180 kids participate, including what Chester High athletic director LaDontay Bell hopes is the seed of a girls high school program soon.

They have lent support to the SWAG Soccer program, founded in 2018 for younger kids with a network that stretches into Philadelphia.

The WSFS Sports Complex allows them the facilities to host all the programs, while the Union also maintain the grass field at STEM Academy for the district.

It involved difficult discussions within the foundation on where to focus resources.

Was it worth pushing for varsity for the sake of public commitments? Could efforts be better allocated to programs that were actually drawing players? Radu, who played at Rutgers and coached at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County and NJIT before seven years in Penn Fusions Developmental Academy, understands the need to meet players where they are.

The results are not our priority, Radu said.

We want to make sure that each of them are growing individually, and thats the way that we approach it.

It is a work in progress.

Chester is 0-3.

It has allowed 22 goals and scored nine, eight by Jacques Mason, who missed Tuesdays game.

The Clippers arent alone in struggling; Academy Park entered Tuesday with an 0-4-1 mark, outscored 31-2.

Both teams dressed 12 players, such that injuries reduced the game to 10-v-10 late on.

Once established, they face the same fight for resources and interest that most non-basketball and football teams face in the Del Val League.

The difference in experience between players can be stark.

Some, like James and Angel Chuya, have played for years.

Chuya grew up in Lancaster and moved to Chester in 2021.

His is an Ecuadorian family, and he grew up watching his dad play soccer locally.

He started playing at age six while watching English Premier League games on TV.

At school, weve been trying to tell people to come out, said Chuya, who has the other goal this year for the Clippers.

But not many people play soccer in Chester.

We have some players out here, and its pretty nice, but we cant get that many players to play soccer.

Theres been turnover in coaching.

The 2019 JV game was overseen by Scott Spangler, the Strath Haven soccer legend who is no longer involved with the program.

Manning the sidelines with Radu Tuesday was Matthew Mountford, the nominal head coach this year.

A former assistant at Erie Cathedral Prep and Mercyhurst University, the native of Preston, England, was hired just last month as the Unions director of youth club affiliates.

The foundation and school district have gone back and forth on the merits (and expense) of a coach in the school regularly or to guide from the outside.

On Tuesday, Bell spoke highly of Mountfords efforts to bring stability that the kids have picked up on.

The disparity in play Tuesday between WSFS Field 6, which held the high school game, and the Union Junior Academy of U9-U11 players a field over was noticeable.

But so was the joy at the end of the sessions, Chester convening for Chick-fil-A sandwiches catered by the Union before returning to the school or heading for home.

Much as press releases have tried to will a passion for soccer into existence, that gulf in experience and intensity isnt fixed overnight.

That reminder came Tuesday courtesy of a golfer using the green space between the Chester Riverfront Trail and the fields to work on his irons.

When a ball found its way onto the turf midgame, the golfer stuck around to boisterously cheer on the team in orange and black.

We havent had a team in a while in Chester, was his response to a scoreline then slanted sharply against Chester early in the second half.

Thats the reality that, increasingly, the Unions foundation is viewing soccers growth in Chester.

Hopefully we get more people and then people start caring about soccer in Chester more, James said.

When you talk about soccer in Chester, people are like, what? I didnt know we had a soccer team.

Hopefully we get to that level where people start seeing us and want to join the team and come around.

And were going to accept them with open arms..

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