Chattanooga FC Season Was Amazing

03 August, 2010

Photo by Tony Quinn

The Chattanooga Football Club’s second season began with a bang, a 2-1 exhibition win over the under-23 team from Fútbol Club Atlas of Guadalajara, Mexico — in front of an announced crowd of 6,317.

The season ended last Saturday in the National Premier Soccer League championship game in Madison, Ala., where Chattanooga FC fell 3-1 to the Sacramento Gold.

“It’s been amazing,” goalkeeper Richard Masters said of the season. “It’s a great feeling to almost win the whole tournament. We were just happy to win the conference. It’s a stage higher than we did last season, so next season hopefully we’ll win it.”

Chattanooga FC’s board will meet later this month to discuss next season and analyze ways to improve on a product that has proven very popular.

The season-opening crowd was the second-largest ever to see a soccer game at Finley Stadium, which opened in 1997. Many of those fans returned again and again as Chattanooga FC averaged more than 4,000 fans in its five home games.

“Learning from our first year helped us improve exponentially for the second year,” general manager Sean McDaniel said. “We were better organized on every level: volunteers, food, operations with the stadium, with the team.”

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