You had the feeling that something within the USL/NASL mess was going to takedown an innocent bystander. An owneiship group that was ready to get involved with professional football and join in on the growth of the game in the country. Yet unfortunatly for FC New York they were peaking around the corner and saw the two sides yelling at each other, which meant it was time to go for plan b. Keeping quiet till the problems of Division Two US Club football came to a conclusion.

They came out with such a roar like a proud lion. The ownership group lead by Doug Peterson at the Yale Club near Grand Central Terminal stood up at the podium with then USL President Francisco Marcos smiling at the prospects of not just adding to the sports landscape of football in the New York City area, but to challenge Red Bull New York for who can get the most supporters. Peterson was ready to tackle the top clubs of USL-1st Division, as well as the big boys in RBNY for an annual pre-season match. Even if you went to their website at the bottom you can see an upside down Red Bull and a promise of slaying them. Sadly enough their press conference was on April Fools Day of 2009.

Since their announcement of joining the USL FC New York kept silent, in fact they never spoke again for the last five to six months. No one answered the phones, no one responded to e-mails. NY Daily News reporter Michael Lewis never had his requests answered either. They kept quiet and waited for this heated argument of second division club football come to an end. While I can understand why they didn’t want to join in on the fight, sadly it tarnished what they were trying to do. Even I had my doubts about FC New York after their Silence started.

If you go to Big Soccer and read on several threads in the FC New York section, there is a strong ammount of many that never believed this USL side was truly going to start up at all. But those few who believed in this club and stuck to their guns were rewarded.

Once US Soccer solved the problems of the USL/TOA situation Doug Peterson broke his silence and announced that FC New York would be ready for the 2011 season in the USL. Finally this man came out to tell the NYC area and the US Soccer community that they would be ready for next season. But something tells me that the damage has already been done.

That giant roar slowly but surely was barely a kitten’s meow as this project by Peterson has been dealt a serious blow. The FC New York webpage hasn’t been updated since the press release on April Fools Day and right now he is the one looking foolish. If he would’ve informed the local press as well as the new supporters of his club that they are going to hold back and wait for these problems to end I believe most of the people would’ve understood. But unfortunatly in this case silence wasn’t golden.

I think Doug Peterson was a bit over his head on this situation. I don’t mind some bravado to talk up the club, but when you can’t back it up it’s gonna come crashing down in a heartbeat. But I wish FC New York good luck in the 2011 USL season.

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