Several years ago (well, more than several), I started a travel soccer club after my sons and many of their friends, who had been on an undefeated U 12 (under 12) travel soccer team, were not offered the chance to continue playing travel soccer that fall when they moved up to U-14.
Stunned and saddened for all the children who had no place to play (except in the town's co-ed and less competitive recreational program), my immediate goal in starting a new travel soccer club was to give them, and the eighty other boys who were also excluded from the existing program, a chance to keep playing travel soccer and to continue to develop their soccer skills on a travel soccer team during the fall season.
My ultimate goal was to bring about changes in the existing club so that all of the kids playing in the new program that I created would be offered spots on the existing club's teams the following spring season, at which point we would discontinue operation of a separate club.
Fortunately, as things turned out, every player on all of the new teams (all of which had successful seasons and more than held their own, even against teams from the established club), was offered a spot in the existing club's program that spring after they adopted a more inclusive model, so we were pleased to discontinue operations.
And, as I suspected would be the case, some of the players, branded by the existing club as not being good enough to play travel soccer, later went on to make the varsity soccer team when they got to high school.
