Oneida FC (Oneida Football Club) is a

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

club based in

East Boston East Boston, nicknamed Eastie, is a Neighborhoods in Boston, neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, United States, which was annexed by the city of Boston in 1836. Neighboring communities include Winthrop, Massachusetts, Winthrop, Revere, Mas ...

. The organisation was established in 2011 and plays its home games at East Boston Memorial Stadium, owned by the city of

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

. The field also hosts

American football American football, referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada and also known as gridiron football, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular American football field, field with goalposts at e ...

and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball games, bat-and-ball sport played between two team sport, teams of nine players each, taking turns batting (baseball), batting and Fielding (baseball), fielding. The game occurs over the course of several Pitch ...

games. In the past, Oneida had a

rugby league Rugby league football, commonly known as rugby league in English-speaking countries and rugby 13/XIII in non-Anglophone Europe, is a contact sport, full-contact sport played by two teams of thirteen players on a rectangular Rugby league playin ...

team which was dissolved in 2013. It played in the

USA Rugby League The USA Rugby League (formally the US Association of Rugby League, Inc.) is the national governing body for rugby league in the United States. The organization is responsible for running the domestic club competitions and the United State ...

(USARL) from 2011 to 2012 before pausing their operations. The team played their home games at Henry G. Steinbrenner '27 Stadium on the campus of the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. In 2020 a separate organization, "Oneida County Football Club", was started in Utica, Oneida County, NY. They feature youth soccer teams. On June 4, 2022 the 2010 birth year team played their final tournament winning the prestigious Northstars Cup. There currently is a 2011–12 team.

History

Rugby League

The Oneida FC rugby league club was established in 2011 as a charter member of the newly announced

, which was formed by teams that had left the established American National Rugby League (AMNRL). The team was named in honor of the

Oneida Football Club The Oneida Football Club, founded and captained by Gerrit Smith Miller in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1862, was the first organized team to play any kind of football in the United States.football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

team in the United States, which operated from 1862–1865. Together with the New Jersey Turnpike Titans and the Rhode Island Rebellion, they were one of three new teams to join the league. The club operated under the leadership the USARL's other

-based team, the Boston Thirteens, but competed as a separate team. The establishment of Oneida FC put two USARL teams in Boston, and four in

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

, an arrangement that lowered operating costs. The team struggled on the field in their inaugural season but found success in recruiting players from other sports. Oneida finished the 2012 season in sixth place, missing the playoffs. They were initially announced to compete in 2013, but withdrew before the season, along with the New Haven Warriors. Oneida FC played all home games at Henry G. Steinbrenner '27 Stadium at the

Soccer

The organization also fielded an amateur

team under the "Oneida FC" banner in the Casa Soccer League of Boston, where they won the championship in 2011. They moved to the Bay State Soccer League (BSSL) in 2013, where they currently compete in Division 2.

USARL season summaries

References

External links