Hartford Athletic: Connecticut’s Community-Supported Soccer Team

By David Sandoval
Uni­ver­si­ty of Connecticut
April 15,2019

A new club was set to emerge in the USL Cham­pi­onship. While their first game of the sea­son was away, the Hart­ford Ath­let­ic host­ed a watch par­ty in a local brew­ery min­utes away from Dil­lon Stadium.

Fans of the sport across the state trav­eled to watch the club’s first ever match in the small brew­ery, some even stood out­side, but it was a his­toric night in Connecticut’s capital.

Inside the Thomas Hook­er Brew­ery at Colt on a cold, March night in Hart­ford, a large, racial­ly mixed crowd of fans gath­ered to watch their state’s first pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer team as the Hart­ford Ath­let­ic played against ‘Atlanta Unit­ed 2’ on four TV screens.

Fans were chant­i­ng “Let’s go, Hart­ford!” and “ H.A.! F.C.!” through­out the Unit­ed Soc­cer League Cham­pi­onship game only to see Hart­ford lose 2–0 in its debut.

Michael Lawlor, a res­i­dent of Man­ches­ter who was at the watch par­ty, said he ful­ly sup­ports Hart­ford Ath­let­ic because he has been a soc­cer fan since he was a child.

“Hav­ing a team in my back­yard is what real­ly appeals to me,” Lawlor said. “It’s part of my com­mu­ni­ty and I get to meet peo­ple through­out my neigh­bor­hood and through the area that has a com­mon iden­ti­ty: Hart­ford Ath­let­ic.”

Hart­ford Ath­let­ic was found­ed in 2018 by the Hart­ford Sports Group, whose own­ers are Bruce Man­dell, Joe Calafiore and Scott Schoo­ley. Since then, it has host­ed mul­ti­ple events, includ­ing a ‘meet the coach’ event when Coach Jim­my Nielsen was hired, a Super Bowl watch par­ty where fans were able to meet the play­ers, as well as the watch par­ty event for Hart­ford Ath­let­ic’s first game.

John Ponziani, Hart­ford Athletic’s mar­ket­ing and com­mu­ni­ca­tions man­ag­er, said in an email that the club plans to host more events, includ­ing men­tal and phys­i­cal health aware­ness events, events for women and clin­ics for kids.

Ponziani said the loca­tion to place the Hart­ford Ath­let­ic in Connecticut’s cap­i­tal was rather an easy choice.

“All three of our own­ers either grew up in Hart­ford or lived in Hart­ford for a part of their lives,” he said. “They all cur­rent­ly live in Hart­ford sub­urbs and want to make the city the best place to work, live, and play.”

What makes Hart­ford Ath­let­ic a com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven club is the pos­i­tive feed­back it has received from Hart­ford-area res­i­dents, Ponziani said. He said that one of their play­ers who’s Pol­ish goes to a Pol­ish school on the week­ends; the Peru­vian com­mu­ni­ty imme­di­ate­ly sup­port­ed the team when the club was found­ed, and the soc­cer club had estab­lished rela­tion­ships with Span­ish-speak­ing tele­vi­sion sta­tions such as Tele­mu­n­do and Uni­vi­sion.

Joe Calafiore, Hart­ford Athletic’s co-own­er and direc­tor in mar­ket­ing and strate­gic ini­tia­tives, said in an email that the soc­cer club is for­tu­nate to be in a diverse city that loves the sport. Calafiore also said the team has received sup­port from many soc­cer orga­ni­za­tions, includ­ing the Con­necti­cut Junior Soc­cer Asso­ci­a­tion, the Farm­ing­ton Sports Are­na and the Oak­wood Soc­cer Club.

“From a soc­cer per­spec­tive, it’s our goal to pro­vide oppor­tu­ni­ties to grow the game we love in the state we love and give back to all the play­ers, par­ents, coach­es and admin­is­tra­tors who invest so much time and ener­gy into the game,” Calafiore said.

Lawlor said Hart­ford Ath­let­ic will help pop­u­lar­ize soc­cer not only in Hart­ford but through­out the state.

“Soc­cer is the glob­al game. You see it at the World Cup. You see it in the [mul­ti­ple] Euro­pean cham­pi­onships,” Lawlor said. “When you see U.S. soc­cer sup­port­ers, you see peo­ple of many dif­fer­ent back­grounds. With Hart­ford Ath­let­ic, it’s a great way to bring the com­mu­ni­ty togeth­er that might not cross paths otherwise.”

Kevin Stew­art of Rocky Hill, who also went to the watch par­ty, said he sup­ports Hart­ford Ath­let­ic because he played, watched and enjoyed soc­cer grow­ing up.

“A new club in [the city], along with the Yard Goats who are doing well, I hope Hart­ford Ath­let­ic can feed on that as well and do just as well,” Stew­art said.

Stew­art said that while the city of Hart­ford is already filled with soc­cer fans, it will also be a boost for soc­cer in the suburbs.

Cur­tis Bolduc of South Wind­sor, an account exec­u­tive who also works for the team in tick­et sales, said he’s been wait­ing for a pro­fes­sion­al soc­cer team come to Hart­ford for some time.

“It’s great to actu­al­ly be part of the team, help be in the front office and also just as a soc­cer fan actu­al­ly have a team that Con­necti­cut can be behind,” Bolduc said.

Bolduc also said that they tried to host and par­tic­i­pate in many events to get their name out and show that they’re a part of the com­mu­ni­ty and they want to give back to it.

“Espe­cial­ly since we’re a new team, and this is the first game, mov­ing for­ward we’ll def­i­nite­ly have more [events] to come,” Bolduc said. “We’re here, we’re ready to play, we’re ready to be with Hart­ford.”

Bolduc said that soc­cer has been sig­nif­i­cant­ly grow­ing in pop­u­lar­i­ty, com­par­ing the num­ber of atten­dees at the Major League Soc­cer Cup to the num­ber of peo­ple who went to the Super Bowl.

“If you look at Europe, [soc­cer] is a reli­gion there. If you pull up sta­tis­tics from the World Cup, Hart­ford was top five for view­ing in the total coun­try,” Bolduc said. “It’s already huge here. There’s a great soc­cer pop­u­la­tion here, and I think everybody’s ready to get behind [Hart­ford Ath­let­ic] now that we have one here in downtown.”

Stew­art Azor of New York, who also went to the watch par­ty, said that Con­necti­cut is already a soc­cer state. He also said that if the city gets behind Hart­ford Ath­let­ic, then the club will be successful.

“It’ll def­i­nite­ly grow from there,” Azor said. “Con­necti­cut could final­ly say ‘Hey, we have a pro­fes­sion­al team that’s inde­pen­dent and doesn’t report to anyone.’”