Zeke - know anything about Seacoast United ?

[Mooro]

Who are Seacoast United then?

Is it a proper club competiting in the US Soccer League setup or is it some other type of organisation/youth club?

Don't know anything about this link up from our end, but would feel more excited (OK, intrigued) if I knew more about who they are....

[Zeke]

Don't know too much about them, really. They're a youth setup, U11- U18, both boys and girls with 40 or so teams total. Northern New England is not exactly a footy hotbed though, Southern California, Texas, Illinois and eastern Pennsylvania/Northern New Jersey produce a significantly larger amount of quality players than other parts of the country. Their list of alumni is unimpressive, primarily players graduating to localMy local team, Austin United, is U5-U18 and has 5,000|| players and a former national team player, Roy Lassiter, as the director of boys player development. My 2 year old son is gearing up to jump into the fray in 2008!

So I don't see anything too special about them out side of it being a nice PR stunt and possibly being attractive to young, Oxford born talent who might like a trip to the States now and then. New Hampshire is stunningly beautiful and the summer climate there is excellent.

[SmileyMan]

Difficult to see graduates from Seacoast getting work permits to play in the Conference, so I doubt we'll see a flood of previously unknown US superstars propelling us to the Premiership.

If the relationship is going to be used to make our own youth system more attractive, then that's fine. But post-Kassam, the youth system has more pressing matters to attend to, I would have thought, than where the kids spend their summer holidays.

[Mooro]

But post-Kassam, the youth system has more pressing matters to attend to, I would have thought, than where the kids spend their summer holidays.

More a matter of post-relegation than post-Kassam, as the drop meant our grant funding was cut in half straight away. Merry has indicated that he will make up the difference, but yes, funding remains an issue, so buy your Oxford Loyal Bands and get your YOU 500 applications in folks.......

[Swissbloke]

I'm decamping from Merry old Oxford to Seattle for 3-4 months, wondered what the quality is like?

[Zeke]

Division 2 in the US is probably similar to English Div 4 or conference. Seattle typically has a competitive team, although I don't claim to watch much US domestic soccer.

If Miami is in town, definitely go as Romario plays for them in his quest to get the all time World goal scoring record. He got a hat trick against Seattle the other day.