The Ottawa Adult Soccer Club has doubled its teams in the past 5 years with 78 teams participating in 2024 compared with just 39 in 2019.
Ottawa Adult Soccer Club team entries by year
The remarkable turnaround came despite the club facing an existential threat because of the COVID-19 pandemic that impacted both the 2020 and 2021 seasons.
With the club servicing a large loan on the Richcraft turf field, the pandemic threatened to turn off the clubs revenue stream if it didn't operate a season in 2020. Despite the challenges the club was able to offer a 10 game 7 v 7 season, becoming one of only 3 leagues in Ontario to operate that summer.
"March 2020 was when our recovery started" said President Tim Baigent "Our loan on the field was costing us over $6,000 a month. We had to find a way to offer a season that summer to ensure we remained in business"
The Board of Directors immediately moved into crisis mode with half the board focusing on the challenging operational issues of how to offer a season in 2020. Meanwhile the other half were focused on strategic issues by defining the clubs roadmap out of the pandemic.
"Both committees were critical " said Tim "Without a season in 2020 the club would have been operating on fumes, while the strategy committee offered us a roadmap to recovery"
Government restrictions in the summer of 2020 restricted soccer games to local communities which meant that the 7 v 7 game was our only option. Now the Richcraft turf field which had threatened our existence became our lifeboat as we had access to a facility that allowed us to offer a 7 v 7 season starting in July. With 40 teams participating the upward trend had started.
7 v 7 action from our 2020 season
Meanwhile the strategy committee had made several key recommendations for the clubs recovery.
These changes were implemented over the next 18 months with the members approving the rebrand in January 2022.
The members of Spitfires Soccer Club and Lynwood Centennials Soccer Club then voted to join our club to take advantage of the larger infrastructure and benefits that our club can offer. Between the 2 clubs, 13 new teams were added to the OASC.
Our own league has also seen a significant growth since 2019. 63 teams will participate in 2024 an increase of over 60% since the 2019 season.
Tim also recognized the contribution of the team managers in our recovery "The Board of Directors and our staff can offer leadership, but its the team managers who make our club a success. Its easy to over look the fact that without our dedicated team managers we wouldn't exist. We appreciate their hard work in preparing their team."
2024 team data
