It’s time to dust off those soccer shoes because the Thorold Soccer Club is gearing up for their new season, which will kick off at the end of May.
“We’re growing significantly,” says the club’s president Gene Citrigno, in an interview with ThoroldToday. “We’ve already got at least 400 kids registered. We’re probably going to hit about 600.”
Online registration for the new season has been open since January, but to get even more players involved, the club is organizing an in-person registration day at their clubhouse on Saturday, April 15.
“If [people] are on the fence about it I would recommend that they come and visit us at registration,” Citrigno says. “We can tell them what we’re all about. We will be welcoming anyone that is new to soccer.”
The club offers programming for kids between three and sixteen years old.
Citrigno says that part of the club’s longevity is its ability to get even the youngest players involved with the game.
“We put a good program up for the young ones to make sure they have fun,” he says. “At the end of the year we put a fun day out for them. We have soccer instructions and music, they get medals and pizza. So they kind of remember what they did all summer and hopefully it brings them back.”
While the new season won’t kick off until the end of May, there are some teams who have already started training.
“We have some travel teams practicing,” Citrigno says. “Our travel teams play from Grimbsy to Fort Erie and all the municipalities in between. They’re currently training indoors and then they get outdoors depending on the weather.”
The Thorold Soccer Club has been around since the early 1970’s. With so many Italian families planting roots in Thorold, it’s no coincidence that the game of soccer would be so embraced by the local community.
“It’s been a tradition in Thorold for a long time,” says Citrigno. “I’m 53 and I played here and now I am the president.”
Citrigno credits the success of the club to a few different factors.
“It’s volunteers, it’s our membership, and it’s a lot of help from the City of Thorold,” he says. “They don’t charge us for use of the field and they take care of the field for us. The City of Thorold has had a great part in keeping the club healthy.”
That's why the club's membership has just grown and grown throughout the decades, says Citrigno.
“We get a lot of kids because it’s a reasonable sport to play financially,” he says. “It’s outdoors and it’s fun.”
The Thorold Soccer Club is organizing the registration info day at their clubhouse in C. E. Grose Park on Saturday, April 15, between 9 a.m. and noon.
If you can't wait to register, you can do so online.
