My soccer writing journey began twenty years ago this spring when my brother, Rob, and I spent a week in England watching soccer. Beginning at Old Trafford, we then went on to St. Andrews, Villa Park, Stamford Bridge, and Fratton Park, catching as many games as possible live or in the pubs. Finally, I’d experienced the sights and sounds in person, not on a weekly cable TV recap show that ran from 7-8 on Wednesday nights and had the same three commercials every break. For one week, we immersed ourselves in the crowds, watching some of the best players in the world display their magical talents. What followed was a Nick Hornby-esque writing adventure that started as an 80,000-word unpublished manuscript and hasn’t stopped.  

Ultimately, my soccer journey always go back to the backyard pitches of my youth. My first pitches were a living room field using a nerf ball and the piano bench and couch cushions as goals and a swing set where my brother once stuck me in goal while he and his friends tanked volleys off my face from close range. The real game changer came when we moved into a house with an unfinished basement that my dad re-created into a mini-Woodhaven Sports Center. With recycling bins as goals, we played 1vs1s, 2vs2s, or even mob footy, filling our time after school or on weekends, between practices, in a creative play environment. Growth comes from many facets, but I do believe the backyard pitch is a separator among player development.

Backyard Pitches is dedicated to the grassroots level of Bucks, Montco, and Philadelphia, and beyond. The Philadelphia area has been a fixture in the history of soccer in our country for over a century, and there are numerous players, coaches, and administrators from our area still influencing the game around the country and worldwide at a high level. This is not a clickbait, breaking news, or AI-generated writing site. Backyard Pitches pledges to deliver quality in-depth writing that connects readers to our local heroes through the beautiful game.

It’s our game, our backyard.