New Belleville soccer team opens path to pros for players, fun for metro-east families
Brian “BT” Thomas and Sean White were up early with other friends in their apartment watching English Premier League soccer when somebody casually suggested they could start a club of their own.
Within a year, they had a board of directors, a treasury, corporate sponsors, and a home pitch. Now Belleville has a competitive semi-professional team sanctioned by U.S. Soccer.
Ehtar Belleville F.C. begins play as a National Premier Soccer League expansion team at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 20, in Milwaukee. Prior to that, the team will play a home exhibition match against the BelleVegas Legends on Saturday, May 6.
The club takes its name, which means swordsman or warrior, from southern Illinois’ historical notoriety as “Little Egypt.” Its new crest and colors come from the flag of Belleville.
Thomas, a 1989 graduate of Belleville West and the club’s president, envisions Ehtar Belleville F.C. as a family-friendly venue for summertime entertainment and a stepping stone for competitive players with hopes of going pro.
“Everyone is very excited,” Thomas said. “It was a lot of hard work and to see the dividends pay off ... I think some of the kids who play for us are kind of amazed at how quickly this came together. I think the people most excited are our friends’ wives and husbands who said this was never going to work and here we are.”
Ehtar will use the former Lindenwood University and Belleville West campus on West Main Street as their home field, pending official approval of a lease from the Belleville City Council at its April 3 meeting.
“They’re in the process of fixing up the stadium a little bit like putting in permanent bleachers,” Thomas said.
What is Ehtar and the NPSL?
At the end of last year, the NPSL signed an agreement with U.S. Soccer — the governing body that sends teams to the World Cup — designating it a Tier 1 league of U.S. Soccer.
“It’s affiliated with the MLS and the new St. Louis team. It’s like a pyramid to where everyone tries to get to the pro level and we’re in that pyramid now,” Thomas said. “With us being affiliated with a Tier 1, every year they have a tournament for all the teams in America at a certain level.
“It’s possible a team from our level could play an MLS team in a game.”
With that level of competition and exposure, Ehtar will provide players a potential avenue to a professional soccer career.
“These are players who have aspirations of going pro,” Thomas said. “It will include a lot of college players — who don’t get paid and don’t lose any eligibility — and guys who just graduated looking to move up. These are players who have legit professional aspirations who have a legit chance to reach the MLS. There are kids looking to get a college scholarship to playing abroad or going pro on some other level all the way to the top.
“It’s as close to a professional soccer team as Belleville will get.”
The team blends a mix of primarily college-aged players with individuals such as Edwardsille High School graduate Michael Romann, a 27-year-old married photographer who shoots mostly photos and video for weddings. He’s not necessarily looking at Ehtar as an opportunity to play professionally, but, instead, for the competitiveness.
“It’s more I’m competitive and the places I play in general are not as competitive as I’d like to be,” he said. “It’s more to be out there and be with guys who are competitive ... if I was a little bit younger, I might be considering those (professional) avenues. But it’s a good stepping stone for some of the younger guys who could use it to play in college or professionally.”
Ehtar will compete in the Gateway Conference of the Midwest Region. Other teams include Club Atletico Saint Louis; Des Moines United F.C.; F.C. Milwaukee Torrent; Iowa Raptors F.C.; and Sunflower State F.C. out of Kansas City. The season starts Saturday, May 20, in Milwaukee and ends in August so college students have time to return to school.
Thomas said Ehtar is funded through business sponsorships and private boosters. The first-year cost was about $120,000, which included the initial league fee. Moving beyond this season, the annual bill will be $80,000, he said.
Thomas also noted Ehtar recently became a 501 non-profit organization.
How did Ehtar Belleville FC come to be?
Thomas explained the process for how Ehtar went from a simple idea among friends to reality.
“The biggest thing is two years ago at this time we were just sitting around talking about having a soccer team and putting something together,” Thomas said. “A year ago, we got a business license and started looking around for a field to play on, who would be on the team, who we were going to play. Then it turned into we got a couple sponsorships and a couple kids who were interested. Then we hooked up with SWIC and were able to start using the field at the old Lindenwood-Belleville West.”
After that, Thomas said, Ehtar worked with the city and ultimately staged an exhibition game last fall against the BelleVegas Legends, a group that competes recreationally.
From there, things snowballed. Thomas said they got in touch with the Club Atletico owner in St. Louis, filled out paperwork, secured some sponsors and “now they’re ready to hope on a bus and embark on road trips around the Midwest.”
Thomas credits Sean White, the club’s sales manager, as the brainchild behind Ehtar Bellevile F.C.
“It was just out of purely a love for soccer. We’re up at 6 a.m. up watching the English Premier League and we’re just sitting around talking and talking. It was almost a tongue-in-cheek thing where we said, ‘we could have a soccer team’ ... next thing you know, we’re talking to more people,” Thomas said.
“And it just goes beyond talking about it in the apartment to people saying they might be on board with it. I went and opened a bank account and incorporated the name of the team. If you have something that takes it from thought to actually being concrete and real, then the floodgates opened and everyone got on board.”
Thomas hopes Ehtar Belleville F.C. piggy-backs off the popularity of soccer in general, and, more specifically, from the infusion and success of St. Louis City SC, the MLS expansion club.
“Soccer is the biggest game on the planet,” he said. “Everybody plays it. You can just see by watching the World Cup games and see how everyone can rally around the same cause and get together. It’s a chance for us as metro-east citizens to experience that.”
The NPSL, meanwhile, welcomes Ehtar with open arms.
“The NPSL is excited to welcome Belleville, Illinois to the NPSL’s Midwest Region,” NPSL Managing Director Cindy Spera said in a press release earlier this year. “A key component of our expansion strategy is focused on this area of the country, and Belleville bridges the gap between St. Louis, Iowa, and north into Chicago. The geographical position of the team combined with an experienced and sophisticated management team is a recipe for success.”
More than just a soccer game
Ehtar Belleville F.C. will play two exhibition games, five home games and five away games. At home, Thomas said the club wants to promote a family atmosphere that goes beyond just a highly competitive soccer game.
“We’ll have vendors, food trucks and beer trucks all set up in the parking lot,” said Thomas, adding Ehtar Belleville F.C. has a team store at the Sportplex in Belleville. “There will be stuff for the kids to do, kind of like when you think of minor league baseball, stuff going on between innings. The whole concept is to throw a mini-carnival, but there’s also a soccer game going on.”
While the facility at the college and high school — now known officially as the Southwestern Illinois Justice and Workforce Development Campus — has lights, Thomas expects most games to be during the day. He also said games will take place primarily on the weekends due to travel.
“Ideally, we’d like to maybe have a night game or two, but we want to focus on the afternoons to where people can spend the whole day there. Kids can throw bags, there will be big, inflatable soccer balls kids can throw around,” he said.
Admission will be $10 a ticket, but Ehtar will have season ticket packages available for order on the club’s website — https://ehtarfc.com/.
Southern Illinois has historically been referred to as “Little Egypt” because the farmland was more drought resistant and could be counted on to produce grain, much like ancient Cairo, the Egyptian capital which also lends its name to the city at the confluence of the Mississippi and Ohio rivers.
Thomas said Ehter Belleville F.C. ran with the theme, taking on Moriarity the Mummy as its mascot and recasting its Lindenwood Field pitch as The Valley of The Kings.
“The Valley of the Kings is where they found the burial grounds for all the pharaohs and mummies in Egypt,” said Thomas, whose younger brother, Bryant Thomas, is the club’s equipment manager. “With the region being referred to as Little Egypt ... we decided to roll with the whole Egyptian theme.”
Meet the Ehtar coach
Coaching Ehtar will be Drew Crawford, who brings a wealth of experience in St. Louis-area soccer.
Crawford played at Mascoutah High School and Southwestern Illinois College and has numerous coaching stops including youth soccer at the Sportsplex; at Forest Park with Althoff coach and SWIC coach Juergen Huettner; and with the McKendree girls program for five years under Tim Strange.
Crawford also has experience in club soccer as the former COO of Gateway Rush Soccer Club and former Director of Coaching at Metro East Legacy. He says he’s thrilled with the opportunity to coach in the NPSL.
“It’s great for the kids in the area,” he said “Me growing up in the area, I had to go to St. Louis to do anything like this. Now that have we have it in our own backyard, it’s a great opportunity for kids to play over the summer at a high level. It’s an awesome opportunity that I hope many of these kids take full advantage. And this is giving me an opportunity to get back into coaching.
“I have three young kids so, with the games in the summer, I don’t have to miss their stuff. This is a great opportunity for me to get back to doing what I love.”
Focus on community
Ehtar’s community-based focus piqued Crawford’s interest, citing conversations he had with Thomas and Ian Thurlow, the club’s secretary.
“They want to get out to the community and do special events for just Belleville and the local area from raising money to trying to get organizations involved with us,” Crawford said. “For me that was a huge drawing point — just the sense of community and things they’re trying to do with the community projects.”
That community focus already has been prevalent.
Ehtar held a food drive to benefit the St. Augustine Food Pantry at Christmas and a 50/50 raffle in February and presented a check from the raffle to the Violence Prevention Center of Southwestern Illinois. Ehtar also had a float in the recent St. Patrick’s Day parade in downtown Belleville.
Crawford and his wife, Julie, have three children: Kendall, 7; Morgan, 5; and Connor, 2. Drew Crawford — who turns 38 on Tuesday, March 28 — works for Geissler Roofing in Belleville in the accounting department.
Crawford hopes to have the roster set soon. He said he wants to have enough players for essentially a first and a second team while outlining some basic goals for the opening campaign.
“Obviously, we want to put a great product on the field first and foremost, a respectful product,” he said. “But we also want to give them a chance to play in the off-season, stay fit, and be in game shape when they show up for preseason. For the players out of college, we want to give them an avenue to keep on playing and get ID’d by someone bigger if that’s what they choose to do.”
Former Edwardsville star key piece of Ehtar
Romann will be one of Ehtar Belleville F.C.’s marquee players. He was born and raised in Edwardsville and helped Edwardsville High School to the state soccer title as a senior in the fall of 2013.
Along with several of his teammates from the state title team — including Connor Wright, Josh Kowalis, Mohammad Hamad and Tommy Giacobbe — Romann is ready to bring similar success to the organization.
“I really can’t wait for it all to get going,” said Roman, a center midfielder. “It’s a pretty exciting, new and upcoming opportunity that gives us somewhere to play. A lot of the guys that I know and grew up playing with have always wanted something like this for the community to come out and support. I’m pretty excited for it.
Following his Edwardsville career, Romann played two years at Lewis and Clark Community College and has remained active since, playing pick-up soccer with friends and in local indoor leagues. He’s now ready to showcase his talents with Ehtar.
“A friend of mine, Austin Seaford, is involved with the club and plays on a team I play against and he brought it up to me after a game,” Romann said. “He said I should come out and give it a go. They had tryouts and me a couple friends decided to try it ... I liked the guys, I liked the coaches and they said we’d have a spot on the team.”
Roman said having a local team like Ehtar Belleville F.C. is overdue, while noting the presence of St. Louis City SC will only fuel the local enthusiasm.
“I think it’s really going to ignite this community ... there are a lot of soccer people in St. Louis,” Romann said. “Whenever I go out to play on Sundays in Edwardsville, there are always people wanting to play and watch soccer. I went to a St. Louis City game and the place was packed.
“You can feel it in St. Louis that people are wanting more soccer. Belleville being a part of that is really cool and St. Louis will benefit from having another team to support and getting the community involved.”
