Two Maple Ridge soccer clubs are no longer part of the Alouette District Youth Soccer Association, but have instead joined the Tri-Cities Youth Soccer Association.
Earlier this year, the Alouette District Youth Soccer Association announced its dissolution. A message on their website from their board said, “The Alouette District Youth Soccer Association was the former governing body for Ridge Meadows Soccer Club, Albion FC, and Mission Soccer. As of April 23, 2021, the Alouette District Youth Soccer Association ceases to exist, with the clubs joining other Districts.”
The Ridge Meadows Soccer Club’s operations manager Shauna Williams told The News that the club had joined the Tri-Cities district.
“There has been a recent change within the district. The club has joined the tri-city district with Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam and Port Moody. So there has been a lot of change, and really positive growth that we look forward to, for September and the opportunity for us, with Paul’s leadership, to continue to develop and grow the teams so that when we go into the competitions, our kids will be challenged more, and developed more as a result of that,” said Williams.
The Alouette Youth Soccer Association was a collection of three clubs, the Ridge Meadows Soccer club, Albion FC and Mission Soccer, however, according to Williams, the association was starting to grow in such a way that the clubs were growing, and growing apart, but georgraphically too the travel from Mission in, was a challenge for teams coming in from the East.
“We continued to interlock with our U8s to U10s with Albion and Mission, but it was limited with the number of teams that the kids could participate against, and so the Alouette district was disolved and the clubs decided to go in different directions,” said Williams.
Albion FC has also joined the Tri-cities district, taking the total number of clubs under the district to five.
“It is a bigger group and a great opportunity because the clubs on the other side of the river are strong. Coquitlam Metro-Ford has quite a large number of players, and the HPL franchise is over there as well so the level of play is always higher, and so I think it is a good opportunity for us and our teams to play with teams that continue to challenge us,” Williams said.
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