Image credit: City of Angels FC
City of Angels FC are the club that appear to have it all. Sting, the rock icon, wears branded T-shirts on stage at his concerts; Cobi Jones, the former United States international, is the newly appointed director of football; they recently put on a soccer clinic with Manchester United and have basked in international media coverage.
And yet their first season in the fourth-tier National Premier Soccer League was, to put it mildly, a complete mess.
A quick glance at the final Southwest Division table indicates many of their problems — just two wins out of 16 games played and an incredible 88 goals conceded. It does not tell the full story of the club’s problems on and off the field, though. Far from it.
That one of the club’s co-owners is Sting’s son, Joe Sumner, immediately thrust the club into the spotlight when they launched last December. But a badly thought-out TV interview soon after gave Sumner and, specifically, co-owner PJ Harrison just two weeks to come up with a venue, an entire team, a badge and a kit. Harrison took up the story.
City of Angels FC co-owner Joe Sumner. Photo credit: Joe Sumner
“Joe and I did a live TV interview and didn’t necessarily say the right things,” the Englishman told Soc Takes in a telephone interview. “We were in a situation where league called to say, ‘Hey, it can’t be true but we heard that you said that you want to play next year [in 2018]. We said, ‘Yes, we do but we we’re hoping to talk to you about that more before it went public.’ They spoke with the owners in our division and the league came back and said, ‘Everyone wants you to play this year and if not you’re in danger of not being able to participate next year.’
“Professionalism can be judged in different ways – it isn’t necessarily unprofessional to delay something but it can be unprofessional to go out and get started. Which one of those reflects worse on the league is an objective thing but my opinion is that the latter thing is more destructive. But it meant that we had to get into it. It’s not a regret but we did struggle on the pitch — and it was stressful because we went from having no venue, no team, no badge, no kit, nothing, to having all of it in two weeks. And that was something I pretty much had to coordinate myself, and a lot of it by phone from England.”
The NPSL said in a statement: “It’s true that there were conversations for the team to delay their launch to 2018, but due to the timing of those conversations earlier this year when the schedule was largely finalized among the other members in the conference, it was decided that they would begin play in 2017.
“City of Angels FC put the interests of their other partners before their own, which speaks to the quality of the individuals running that team and the cooperative spirit among the membership of the NPSL ownership platform.”
With limited options to find a local venue at quick notice and with a limited budget, City of Angels FC ended up playing at a practice soccer facility at LA Valley College. Not only was there no allowance for any spectators — meaning the club played behind closed doors — but Harrison had to buy paint for the college groundskeeper to put lines on the field.
Harrison added: “It was like renting a car and there’s no tires on it. We rented a field and there were no lines on it. There were weeds that were knee-high — fortunately the groundsman was very cool and removed them by hand. I wasn’t in a good mood the day when I saw the pitch.
“I was in a pub at midnight, calling Los Angeles, ‘Can you cut the grass please? Can we use the locker rooms?’ ‘Yeah you can but you can only use one.’ It was weird to be in this situation after you’ve paid a lot of money.”
“And we had an attendance of zero just because we had to put a team out as we had pressure from the league to get a venue. It’s easier than it sounds to find somewhere else. Particularly when you only have two weeks to find a venue – we only signed a venue a week before our first home game.” -PJ Harrison
Harrison added: “I think the league and owners could have been much more helpful — I don’t know how damaging it would have been for us to defer this year, build and then come back next year. But that was the situation we were in.
“It remains to be seen if we play (at LA Valley College) next year. We’re in different situation now — people know who we are.”
Luke Davis, the Supervisor of Administrative Services at LA Valley College who dealt with Harrison, said: “It wasn’t as if PJ rented the facility and then found out all these things, such as no spectators and no lines on the field. They were all addressed before he paid to rent the facilities.
Image credit: City of Angels FC
“In my opinion we went above and beyond for someone who is using a grass pitch that is used for nothing more than practice.”
With a venue — no matter how unsuitable — found, Harrison and his coaching staff quickly had to put a squad together and did so via open trials. Unsurprisingly, the team suffered on the field, conceding an average of over five goals a game. Harrison was angry that division rivals did not let up against City of Angels FC’s defense as they racked up cricket scores against the struggling newcomers.
“We put it out on social media that we were having trials and it was phenomenally successful. We got a big, big response,” Harrison said. “It wasn’t easy but next year it will be a lot different. Cobi will help in that process and we’ve got to know the landscape better. The recruitment process will be a lot different.
“Regardless of that we should never had conceded that many goals. There’s a lot of players who don’t have the heart and think it’s recreational — they won’t wear the shirt again.
“There were some unacceptable scorelines but it was strange trying to see a team try to score double figures on you. Not even Germany did that against Brazil in the 2014 World Cup [in a 7-1 win]. Some of the other clubs were also making fun of us for having no fans. Firstly, they weren’t bringing in many fans themselves and also we subsidized them by giving them three points and an extra home game.
“We expected a little bit of class, which wasn’t forthcoming, and that eats away at your respect for your colleagues. I don’t know if they had the subtlety to understand the difference between banter and inappropriate criticism, but it wasn’t very welcome.
“And we still didn’t finish bottom of the table, which has to be some level of success.”
Despite the initial problems, Harrison has enjoyed the overall experience of seeing his club gain a foothold in the LA community, something that will be hugely aided by the arrival of Jones.
NEW SIGNING!
US legend Cobi Jones joins @cityofangelsfc https://t.co/cnX6fS9mnJ#coafc #cobijones #npsl #losangeles pic.twitter.com/Ik2f6ChG5y— cityofangelsfc (@cityofangelsfc) July 14, 2017
“We are very picky about the people who we work with,” Harrison said. “Cobi is a good guy, fun to be around, very knowledgeable and has a really powerful personal brand in LA which really connects with people. We’ve only just started working together. He is going to be working with everything in playing side, the commercial side and the overall philosophy of the club.
“The confidence people have in him will now extend through the club, which is a big thing. It’s a very significant moment for the club.”
Sting, for his part, has not been to a game — he has been on tour — nor is he an investor. “He is supportive, like any father is of his son, and he’s a football fan as well,” says Harrison. “We appreciate him going out wearing a T-shirt on stage — he has a topless biker girl on his T-shirt.”
NPSL division rivals SoCal SC recently ceased operations, indicating just how difficult life is in lower-league soccer in the United States. But Harrison remains optimistic about City of Angel FC’s future.
“We’ve become part of the community and it’s been very rewarding,” he says. “Even though it was particularly stressful in January when we were trying to get it all together, it wasn’t a particularly big price to pay.”
***
You can follow Bob on Twitter: @WilliamsBob75.
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