Pittsburgh Riverhounds

Pittsburgh Riverhounds

Full name	Pittsburgh Riverhounds
Nickname(s)	Riverhounds The Hounds
Founded	1999
Stadium	New Riverhounds Stadium Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (Capacity: 3,500)
Owner(s)	David Binder Jay Hill David Wilke
Technical Director	Gene Klein
Head Coach	Justin Evans
League	USL Pro
2011	Regular Season: 10th National Division: 4th, Playoffs: Quarter-finals
Website	Club home page
Home colors Away colors
Current season

Pittsburgh Riverhounds is an American professional soccer team based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. Founded in 1999, the team plays in the National Division of the new USL Professional Division, the third tier of the American Soccer Pyramid.

The Riverhounds will play their home games at New Riverhounds Stadium, located in Station Square, late in the 2012 USL Pro season but begin their season at Chartiers Valley High School, the field at which the team has played since 2008. Their current head coach is Justin Evans. The team's uniforms are black, blue, and white.

History

The Riverhounds were founded by Paul Heasley in 1999 as a member of the USL's A-League, now known as USL-1. It played its home games in Bethel Park, at Bethel Park High School's football stadium. That same year the Riverhounds were named the A-League Organization of the Year. John Kowalski was the first head coach of the club; Justin Evans was the first player drafted to play for the Riverhounds. In their 1999 inaugural season, they advanced to the conference semi-finals in the A-league playoffs. Two years later in 2001, they reached the US Open Cup quarterfinals after beating the Colorado Rapids of the Major League Soccer and then-A-league opponent El Paso Patriots in their first two games, but the Hounds were eliminated in the quarterfinals by their second MLS opponent of the tournament, the Chicago Fire, in a two-overtime, 3-2 defeat. The Riverhounds have not reached that level of success since that time due in large part to undergoing multiple ownership and location changes.

In 2004, the club moved down to the USL's Second Division. The team also moved to Moon Township to play at Moon Area High School's football stadium for just one season. In December 2004 Heasley sold the team to Sports Facility LLC, owners of the Washington Wild Things baseball team of the Frontier League. The Riverhounds played both the 2005 and 2006 seasons at the Wild Things' minor league baseball stadium, CONSOL Energy Park, on the outskirts of Washington, Pennsylvania, about 30 miles (48 km) south of Pittsburgh. The franchise continued to hold soccer academies and training to youth across the tri-state area, but did not play during the 2007 season due to a structural reorganization. During that hiatus, the Riverhounds were sold yet again to a new ownership group.

On October 29, 2007, the organization announced another venue change. Beginning with the 2008 season, Chartiers Valley High School's stadium, located just off the Kirwin Heights exit of Interstate 79 in Pittsburgh's South Hills, would be the new home of the Hounds.

The Riverhounds' games were broadcast from 2000 through 2002 on WPTT-AM (now WMNY-AM) and on Fox Sports Radio - WBBG-AM in 2003, and 2005 and 2006, and on WPIT-AM in 2008 by Chris Shovlin. Shovlin was partnered with former Riverhound midfielder Steve Bell on WPTT and with former assistant coach Paul Child on Fox Sports Radio. Shovlin and Bell won the 2003 Pittsburgh March of Dimes A.I.R. Award for Best Play-by-play. Shovlin also served as the team's Director of Publicity during the 2008 and 2009 seasons.

Only one jersey number, "99", has been officially retired by the Riverhounds. That honor was bestowed upon original owner Paul Heasley for founding the club in 1999.

Colors and badge

Old Riverhounds crest

The Riverhound colors - black, blue, and white - were adopted before the start of the 2008 season to honor their academy and training partnership with Everton FC of the Premier League. The use of blue is an allusion to the blue collar populace of Pittsburgh.

The term Riverhound is derived from the expression, river dog, which refers to the barge workers that ply the three rivers at their confluence in Pittsburgh. In fact, the team's mascot, AMO, is named for the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers.

Stadium

• Bethel Park High School; Bethel Park, Pennsylvania (1999–2003)
• Moon Area High School; Moon Township, Pennsylvania (2004)
• CONSOL Energy Park; Washington, Pennsylvania (2005–2006)
• Chartiers Valley High School; Bridgeville, Pennsylvania (2008–2012)
• New Riverhounds Stadium; South Side (2012-Present)

Future home

For full article, see New Riverhounds Stadium.

There had been no official announcement concerning a permanent home for the Hounds, but much has been speculated since GM and manager Gene Klein, on 13 July 2007, said that the Riverhounds "are to the point on the stadium complex where it is a matter of paperwork and it will get done. We hope to make an official announcement on it...but like everything else, we'll walk with it before we try and run. We are doing things the right way." More recently, on 9 July 2008, Dan Onorato, Chief Executive of Allegheny County, announced a planned development of a 78-acre (320,000 m²) sports and recreation park that covers area near Pittsburgh in Coraopolis, Robinson, and Moon known as Montour Junction. The land was donated to the county's Redevelopment Authority by the Sports Legacy Foundation, which is chaired by Riverhounds founder and former owner Paul Heasley. The SLF has owned the land since 2002 and has already spent about $60k for the environmental cleanup of the land, which was once owned by the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad and had been declared a brownfield. The proposed uses for the park included soccer pitches as well as other multipurpose team sports fields such as rugby and lacrosse. It was believed by many that a stadium would be built around one of the fields and that it would likely become a permanent home for the Hounds.

Despite speculation and previous attempts to build a permanent home for the Riverhounds at other locations, on December 8, 2011, it was revealed that a stadium for the club could be built at Station Square on the site of the current amphitheater close to downtown Pittsburgh as part of a redevelopment of the area. However, at the time there was no timeline set for the proposed redevelopment. Less than a month later on January 10, 2011, an official announcement was made that the construction would begin and that the stadium would be completed by summer 2012. The stadium was financed with an estimated $7 million dollars by private investors in addition to several corporate sponsors including Highmark who hold naming rights for the stadium. Although it will be a soccer-specific stadium, other sporting and non-sporting events will be held at the stadium, including the home games of the Pittsburgh Passion.

Club culture

Supporters

Fans of the Pittsburgh Riverhounds

In November 2007, the Steel Army was formed when their first meeting was held at Piper's Pub in Pittsburgh's South Side. The group started as 5-10 local people interested in supporting the reorganized Riverhounds Football Club and to support the efforts of growing the sport of soccer in Western Pennsylvania. The group has since in a short amount of time grown from those humble beginnings, with the Steel Army message board active daily with members discussing the Hounds, events, meetings, and the international game of football.

Members are not only from Pittsburgh but also from states as close as Ohio to states as far away as Oregon and Florida. Membership in the Steel Army is now even international with members joining the group from Sunderland and Surrey in the U.K., as well as Bray, in the Republic of Ireland, who will be following the Riverhounds from abroad.

The section of Chartiers Valley High School Stadium where the Steel Army stands and supports the Riverhounds from is called "The Yard". The Steel Army had a rivalry with the Green Army, the Supporters Club of the Cleveland City Stars, and the rivalry and intensity between the Riverhounds and the City Stars on the pitch carried into the stands. Prior to Cleveland folding, the Steel Army would travel en masse to Cleveland when the two teams met, and the Green Army would travel in waves to Pittsburgh.

Players and staff

Current roster

As at November 15, 2011

Note: Flags indicate national team as has been defined under FIFA eligibility rules. Players may hold more than one non-FIFA nationality.

No. Position Player 0 GK Greg Blum 1 GK Hunter Gilstrap 3 DF Kyle Veris 4 DF Nikola Katic 5 DF Sterling Flunder 6 MF Adam Gazda 7 MF Thomas Gray 10 MF Matt Tuttle 12 DF Mike Seth 13 DF Louie Rolko

No. Position Player 14 MF Stefan Lundberg 15 MF Ben Horner 16 FW Jeremy Deighton 17 MF Samuel Appiah 18 DF Neil Shaffer 19 MF Jason Kutney 20 FW Chad Severs 21 MF Shintaro Harada 24 GK Derek Yobbi

Staff

• Justin Evans - Head Coach
• John Rotz - Assistant Coach
• Paul Child - Assistant Coach
• Jeroen Walstra - Goalkeeper Coach
• Chris Leonard - Trainer
• Jason Kutney - Chief Executive Officer/Director of Youth Development
• Gene Klein - Technical Director

Notable former players

See also: List of Pittsburgh Riverhounds players

• Devlin Barnes
• Franz Carr
• Abdul Thompson Conteh
• Paul Dougherty
• Adam Fedoruk
• Greg Janicki
• Thiago Martins
• Jean-Robens Jerome
• Joey Worthen

Head Coaches

• John Kowalski (1999)
• Kai Haaskivi (2001–2004)
• Tim Carter (2004)
• Ricardo Iribarren (2005)
• Gene Klein (2006–2009)
• Justin Evans (2010–present)

Achievements

• USL Pro Soccer League Atlantic Division Champions 2004

Record

Year-by-year

Year	Division	League	Regular Season	Playoffs	U.S. Open Cup	Avg. Attendance
1999	2	USL A-League	4th, Northeast	Conference Semifinals	Did not qualify	4,559
2000	2	USL A-League	7th, Atlantic	Did not qualify	2nd Round	3,808
2001	2	USL A-League	3rd, Northern	Quarterfinals	Quarterfinals	3,226
2002	2	USL A-League	4th, Northeast	Did not qualify	Did not qualify	2,274
2003	2	USL A-League	3rd, Northeast	Did not qualify	3rd Round	1,783
2004	3	USL Pro Soccer League	1st, Atlantic	Semifinals	Did not qualify	1,475
2005	3	USL Second Division	7th	Did not qualify	1st Round	2,236
2006	3	USL Second Division	3rd	Semifinals	1st Round	2,232
2007	On Hiatus
2008	3	USL Second Division	8th	Did not qualify	2nd Round	1,258
2009	3	USL Second Division	8th	Did not qualify	1st Round	1,178
2010	3	USL Second Division	3rd	Semifinals	2nd Round	941
2011	3	USL Pro	4th, National Division	Semifinals	2nd Round	1,127

History vs. Major League Soccer

• 6/27/2001 - U.S. Open Cup (2nd Round) - Colorado Rapids 0 vs. Pittsburgh Riverhounds 2 (Bethel Park H.S. Stadium)
• 7/24/2001 - U.S. Open Cup (Quarterfinals) - Pittsburgh Riverhounds 2 vs. Chicago Fire 3 (McCully Field)
• 7/16/2003 - U.S. Open Cup (3rd Round) - Pittsburgh Riverhounds 1 vs. D.C. United 2 (Maryland Soccerplex)

External links

• Pittsburgh Riverhounds
• Steel Army Supporters Group Message Boards
• The Everton Way: Everton Training Online