Nashville Metros & Middle Tennessee Soccer Supporters Comprehensive Discussion

So the 2012 alignment and schedule is out and Metros are in a whole different division, the South Atlantic in the Eastern Conference. Their division opponents are Carolina, Fredericksburg, Northern Virginia, Palmetto FC, Real Maryland, Southern West Virginia, Virginia Beach and West Virginia. They played in a South Atlantic Division in the Southern Conference in 2006.

So instead of trips all the way down to Florida there are trips to West Virginia, Virginia, Virginia/Maryland and the Carolinas.

The schedule seems a bit out of whack. A two-game weekend road trip the first weekend and then three home matches in two weeks. After that it gets strange. Six straight road games followed by five home games to round out the season. They won't play a home game for over a month (May 27 until June 30) and then five in sixteen days.

Friday, May 11: @ Southern West Virginia
Saturday, May 12; @ West Virginia
Saturday, May 19: CAROLINA
Friday, May 25: SOUTHERN WEST VIRGINIA
Sunday, May 27: REAL MARYLAND
Friday, June 1: @ Virginia Beach
Sunday, June 3: @ Fredericksburg
Friday, June 8: @ Northern Virginia
Sunday, June 10: @ Real Maryland
Friday, June 15: @ Carolina
Sunday, June 17: @ Palmetto FC
Saturday, June 30: NORTHERN VIRGINIA
Thursday, July 5 : WEST VIRGINIA
Saturday, July 7 : VIRGINIA BEACH
Friday, July 13 : PALMETTO FC
Sunday, July 15: FREDERICKSBURG

 

Why, oh why, do we have to put up with this? We could be playing in the NPSL in a division with Knoxville, Chattanooga and Huntsville. Do the math:

More regional opponents = more rivalries = more supporter road trips = more enthusiasm overall for the club

You can still hear the crickets chirping over at www.nashvillemetrossoccer.com. God forbid we get a press release championing the new schedule much less details on home pitch, etc.

 

Well the schedule is out, all be it a strange division change.... lets hope they have a bus with an alternator this season for those long roadtrips!
So we have the schedule, any sign of a note or indication of a tryout???

 

Yes the NPSL has more local clubs but if the Metros do have aspirations of moving up to 3rd division in the future, leaving the USL wouldn't make sense. They would have to buy themselves back into the league.

And the schedule was just released by the league yesterday. Let's see how long it will take before the website is updated. When I was doing it it would have been on there the same day or the next. But that is the one thing I focused on most. It didn't look as nice as it does now but it was timely.

 

Wait.

They got 290 people a game to come to their home games (no road trip involved) last year. How many "supporter road trips" you figure you're going to have for a team that can't get 300 people to come to home games? And how many of the people who are likely to go on a supporter road trip are already included in that 300? 295?

Proximity doesn't always make a rivalry. Rivalries take time, they need meaningful games to occur, they need road victories, they need heroes and villains and heartbreak and bad blood. You can't just say "They're close by, ergo, they're a rival."

 

I think 290 is a total not an average, the game I went to maybe had 50. Nashville has no rivals in the PDL because they keep changing the make up of the divisions. Back in the 90's they did have rivals with New Orleans and Atlanta, but neither team had fans make those road trips.

Now I'll say this, in the NPSL, Rocket City United and Chattanooga FC both have fans make the away trips. Not a lot of fans, maybe 20 or so, but both teams outdraw Nashville by several hundred per game.

 

Both of the previous posters make good points, and I fully recognize that rivalries take time to develop. Still, wouldn't most people be more inclined to road trip to Huntsville, Chattanooga or Knoxville than to West Virginia or South Carolina?

I lay the blame for the current woeful state of the club on management. Lynn and Devinder built something good and tried to hand things off to fresh blood last year, but fresh blood doesn't seem to know how to proceed or doesn't have the wherewithal (financially or otherwise) to make a go of it.

Why do Huntsville and Chattanooga regularly outdraw Nashville? Well, other than the handful of "regulars" the last couple of seasons who come simply for love of watching a match live, there will be no growing fan base as long as there is no outreach to the community (unless the club wants to focus just on the Hispanic community to the exclusion of the rest of Metro Nashville), no marketing, and no media (where have you gone, Harold Huggins?; we could always count on you having a sidebar story in the City Paper back in the day!).

Meanwhile, crickets continue to chirp at www.nashvillemetrossoccer.com.

 

I'm not sure how many people from Nashville and the northern suburban counties road tripped down to home matches in Murfreesboro.

 

That's fair, but how extensive was the marketing to get them down there? The competition for discretionary entertainment spending is even tougher now.

 

Curious how RCU does this year. I've heard they have moved from a real stadium to a field with bleachers. Should be interesting or the beginning of the end.

 

While the crickets continue to chirp at www.nashvillemetrossoccer.com, there is some good news tangentially relevant to the local side:

http://www.ussoccer.com/News/Federa...-Elected-to-National-Soccer-Hall-of-Fame.aspx

Congratulations to Desmond Armstrong on his election to the National Soccer Hall of Fame!

 

And as you say, the crickets are still chirping.

 

Heck, they can't even find the time to update the club website to trumpet Des's election to the HOF.

 

Hey Nashville footie fans. Sorry to jump in your thread but I need some help. I'm coming to Nashville in April and I'm not having much luck finding a place to watch the ARSENAL vs. Chelski game on 4/21. It's an early morning game. Any suggestions? Any premier league crazed establishments that might be open for the game? This could be a big game and I'm trying to plan ahead. Appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

Your best bets would be Mulligan's or Fleet Street downtown, though I predict neither will be open for an early morning game. The owners of 12th Ave. Taproom are soccer fans and opened EARLY for the World Cup games. They might be the most susceptible to some email lobbying.

 

It makes you wonder if the people who run the club even know there are fans that - despite them - want to care about this team and see them succeed. Their current course only creates antipathy or indifference. Why are so many other PDL/NPSL clubs engaging with fans and their communities and the Nashville Metros are stuck in the 80s/90s mind-frame of American soccer? Maintaining an updated, professional website is not a lot to ask for. No one over there shows they care.

 

I always assume that, if I were a PDL or NPSL club owner, I would request a meeting with all the other owners, at the very least at the divisional or conference level, to demand the institution of some basic standards in terms of the administration and presentation of the clubs. Even an "inconsequential" detail like branding and logos; I would suggest all the owners pitch in to hire one reputable and talented design company to service all the clubs. (I'm assumimg the Metros logo involved five minutes on Photoshop). There are some owners who sincerely want to grow something big in their communities through their clubs, and it does not seem fair that they should be forced to share the same league stage with scrubs who just want to run a club (often into the ground) or maintain a semi-pro club to showcase and promote their youth structure on the cheap. And, considering how much more expensive the fees are to run a PDL club, I see no difference in quality between PDL and NPSL clubs. When the NoVa Royals play in Manassas, it sometimes feels like showing up to a pick-up game in the boonies...



www.kennysfootballscarves.com/usl-pdl

www.kennysfootballscarves.com/npsl

 

Sounds a lot like games at Ezell Park.

 

With Olympic qualifiers tomorrow at LP Field, you'd think this would be another chance for the Metros to ride the coattails of a major event and raise their profile. US Soccer keeps blessing Nashville with all these national team events and the Metros continue to remain silent.

 

Well my buddy at the game has confirmed the Metros did get screen time up on LP Field's big board. I wonder what the story is here... every time the USMNT rolls into town, the Metros make some sort of appearance like this. This has to be the only advertising they ever do (if it's their doing at all).

 

Said advertising was minimal at best, but did include their opening regular season home game (on 5/19) being played at Rose Park.

I spoke with Devinder and Brad Branson (ex-GM) this week and neither know exactly what is going on.

 

I wasn't at the game last night, but I remember previous UNMNT matches where they have had the Metros up on the big board. And they have set up a table in one of the end zone plaza areas in the past.

 

Is this the most official statement the Metros have made on moving to Rose (since their website is useless)? I know a few pages back, we had some discussion on Rose but nothing confirmed.

Also wonder why a guy like Devinder is being left in the dark or if he just didn't want to speak on record about the team.

 

Well God forbid there should be a schedule on the website.

And I would find it hard to believe Devinder is being left in the dark. It would seem out of character that he would allow that unless he doesn't care as much these days. Or like you say he is not happy with some things and doesn't want to say.

 

Haha, oh yes, go visit the website! A must-see pic...

http://twitter.com/#!/MusicCitySC/status/184725350515867648/photo/1