This club’s for you
Amateur soccer squad comes together for rare feat
For four months out of each year, members of Tartan Devils Oak Avalon FC escape the 9-to-5 pace of their work lives to play soccer. The local amateur club has been one of the best teams in the Greater Pittsburgh Soccer League (GPSL) recently, dropping just one game since 2014.
Last week, the club accomplished a feat that hasn’t been accomplished in more than 20 years — winning a Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup game.
Not long after becoming the first open division amateur club from Western Pennsylvania to qualify for the tournament since 1992, the Tartan Devils defeated Professional Developmental League foe Derby City Rovers to advance to the second round of the Cup, the first Western Pennsylvania team to do so since the Major League Soccer era began in 1995.
Making the feat more impressive is that the Tartan Devils, like many GPSL teams, do not practice or take part in a training camp . The only time club members play with each other is on game days.
“We work 9-to-5 [jobs] and we literally get together once a week for four months out of the year for the GPSL season,” said EJ McCormick, an event planner, team captain and former Pitt forward. “That’s how often we see each other. No practice. We show up, some guys show up five minutes before the game starts on Sunday and we won’t see them until five minutes before the game starts next Sunday.”
Tartan Devils Oak Avalon FC was created from two former GPSL soccer teams — Tartan Devils FC and Oak Avalon. McCormick played with Oak Avalon during Pitt offseasons, and the team had a strong Pitt influence, he said. The Tartan Devils consisted of a lot of Duquesne players.
Today, the team consists of a conglomerate of former WPIAL and local college talent. Three years ago, the two teams sat down at Piper’s Pub, a Tartan Devils sponsor and “home base,” and decidedto merge.
“It was informal,” team captain, certified public accountant and former Pitt defender Andy Kalas said. “You sat down at the pub and you say ‘Hey, you can get eight guys at a game, we can get eight, it sounds like this is going to work.’”
Wednesday, the team will face United Soccer League team Louisville City FC at 7 p.m. at Highmark Stadium. Louisville City is in the same league as the Riverhounds, a secondtier team in the American Soccer Pyramid.
The Tartan Devils know that the odds are slim, as amateur teams rarely defeat higher-rung teams. But the experience will be just as valuable as the process of attempting an upset, McCormick said.
“These guys are training three to five times a week and playing once or twice a week,” he said. “For us, I think the goal is obviously to come out and win. But it’s enjoy the experience and realize what it is. It’s more of a David versus Goliath situation.”