Two major players in Massachusetts youth soccer on the North Shore — Aztec Soccer based at Soccer ETC in Beverly and New England Soccer School (NESS) based at Amesbury Sports Park — made a big splash by merging organizations.
The new partnership will announce its new name and unveil its new logo next Tuesday at an event for the two clubs' members and families. In combining the two organizations the new association will have 27 teams at various age levels and divisions in Maple with nine full-time coaches and 30 more part-time coaches thus becoming one of the largest clubs not only in Mass. but also in New England.
Logistically and philosophically the partnership worked perfectly, according to Brian Kelly the current director of boys coaching at NESS and soon to be one of the directors of coaching in the new association.
"We have a stronghold up in the Amesbury/Newburyport area and they have a stronghold in the Beverly area, and this should give our area much more of a cache for soccer," stated Kelly, who added the merger should greatly impact the Newburyport/Amesbury area communities. "Our two organizations were also in complete agreement in our soccer philosophy. Our mission is to provide the best soccer education so that players can grow and develop to play on the North Shore and beyond."
Aztec soccer president Mike Kersker said the merger, which will come to fruition over the course of the next two years, worked quite smoothly due to the organizations' shared philosophy in developing players.
"In the past, club soccer in Massachusetts was much more focused on strictly winning games — a mentality that wasn't ideal for teaching all the techniques of the game," Kersker said. "NESS was aligned with what we do. And that is: whether we win or lose at younger ages, we want to give our players the tools to be successful, learn the proper techniques, and become complete soccer players."
What the merger also does in the short term is provide more soccer facilities and more coaching for the players in the organization. The teams will begin using both facilities — the Aztec's Soccer ETC and Beverly fields, and the NESS Amesbury Sports Park facility — each week next September.
Eventually the new organization would like to expand to be able to offer their training regiment to the entire North Shore from Swampscott to Tewksbury to Newburyport.
Perhaps the most exciting development out of the merger is the new organization's partnership with English Premier League club Everton, which currently sits in fourth place in England's top professional soccer league.
The new organization will be one of 15 teams nationwide affiliates of Everton FC utilizing their curriculum The Everton Way youth training system. In conjunction the Everton academy coaches will teach the Aztec/NESS senior coaching staff their principles, while also offering some of the new organization's players a chance to go train in England.
Yet as an association, the new organization is trying to create a culture of soccer for all ages youth to adult by creating a new entity with several different facets.
"The club piece is a big facet of our organization, but we also have an initiative to work with communities for coaching as well as referee clinics, adult training sessions, and parent conferences to help them understand the game better," explained Kersker. "We want to have something for everyone."
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