Appalachian Football Club is a

National Premier Soccer League The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) is an American men's soccer league. The NPSL is a semi-professional league, comprising some teams that have paid players and some that are entirely amateur. The league is officially affiliated to the U ...

expansion team An expansion team is a new team in a sports league, usually from a city that has not hosted a team in that league before, formed with the intention of satisfying the demand for a local team from a population in a new area. Sporting leagues also ...

that began play in March 2021. As a result of the

Appalachian State Mountaineers men's soccer The Appalachian State Mountaineers men's soccer team was an intercollegiate varsity sports team of Appalachian State University. The team was a member of the Sun Belt Conference of the National Collegiate Athletic Association. Joining the Sun Be ...

team being cut in May of 2020 due to the financial impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, head coach Jason O'Keefe and a soccer executive Michael Hitchcock joined up with a group of local business owners to create the team. They are a member of the Southeast Conference along with

Georgia Revolution FC Georgia Revolution FC is an American soccer club based in McDonough, Georgia, United States. The team competes in the Southeast Conference of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), the fourth tier of the United States soccer league system. T ...

Georgia Storm Georgia Storm FC is an American soccer club based in Carrollton, Georgia, United States. The team competes in the Southeast Conference of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL), the fourth tier of the United States soccer league system. The N ...

LSA Athletico Lanier Below is a list of all the teams that ever have ever played, or will play, in the Men's Premier Soccer League (MPSL) or National Premier Soccer League The National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) is an American men's association football, soccer l ...

, Metro Louisville FC, and North Alabama SC. The team plays its home games at the

ASU Soccer Stadium The ASU Soccer Stadium at Ted Mackorell Soccer Complex is a soccer-specific stadium in Boone, North Carolina and is home to the Appalachian State Mountaineers women's soccer team. The stadium, which is part of the Ted Mackorell Soccer Complex, ...

Colors and Crest

The club colors are black and gold. The club crest was designed by award-winning designer Christopher Payne, who has developed brand identities for several football clubs in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

and the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

including

Lexington SC Lexington Sporting Club is an American professional soccer team based in Lexington, Kentucky. Founded in 2021, the team will play its inaugural season in 2023. The team will compete in USL League One, in the third division of the United States ...

Flower City Union The Flower City Union is an American professional soccer team based in Rochester, New York, United States, that plays in the National Independent Soccer Association, a third tier league of the United States soccer league system. Its home stadium i ...

Monterey Bay FC Monterey Bay Football Club is an American professional soccer team based in Monterey County, California. The club was established on February 21, 2021, and is a member of the USL Championship, the second tier of the American soccer league syste ...

, and Eastleigh Football Club. The crest draws inspiration from the

cryptozoological Cryptozoology is a pseudoscience and subculture that searches for and studies unknown, legendary, or extinct animals whose present existence is disputed or unsubstantiated, particularly those popular in folklore, such as Bigfoot, the Loch Nes ...

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of Narrative, narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or Origin myth, origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not Objectivity (philosophy), ...

and

folklore Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as Narrative, tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, r ...

Sasquatch Bigfoot, also commonly referred to as Sasquatch, is a purported ape-like creature said to inhabit the forest of North America. Many dubious articles have been offered in attempts to prove the existence of Bigfoot, including anecdotal claims of ...

sightings Discovery is the act of detecting something new, or something previously unrecognized as meaningful. With reference to sciences and Discipline (academia), academic disciplines, discovery is the observation of new Phenomenon, phenomena, new acti ...

in North Carolina and across the

Appalachian Appalachian may refer to: * Appalachian Mountains, a major mountain range in eastern United States and Canada * Appalachian Trail, a hiking trail in the eastern United States * The people of Appalachia and their culture ** Appalachian Americans, e ...

Mountains A mountain is an elevated portion of the Earth's crust, generally with steep sides that show significant exposed bedrock. Although definitions vary, a mountain may differ from a plateau in having a limited summit area, and is usually higher t ...

History

Appalachian FC joined the

(NPSL), considered the fourth tier of the

American soccer pyramid The United States soccer league system is a series of professional and amateur soccer leagues based, in whole or in part, in the United States. Sometimes called the American soccer pyramid, teams and leagues are not linked by the system of pro ...

and roughly equal to the

USL Premier Development League USL League Two (USL2), formerly the Premier Development League (PDL), is a semi-professional developmental soccer league sponsored by United Soccer Leagues in the United States and Canada, forming part of the United States soccer league sy ...

(PDL). Appalachian FC played their first game on May 1, 2021, ending in a 1-1 draw with Metro Louisville FC. Appalachian FC finished the 2021 season third in their conference and advanced to the

Southeast Conference playoffs The points of the compass are a set of horizontal, radially arrayed compass directions (or azimuths) used in navigation and cartography. A compass rose is primarily composed of four cardinal directions—north, east, south, and west—each sepa ...

. They finished the season with a 2-1 loss to Georgia Storm in the semifinals on July 14, 2021.

2021 Season- Southeast Conference

2021 Southeast Conference playoffs

Bold = winner
* =

after extra time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only ...

, ( ) = penalty shootout score

References

External links

*
Appalachian FC TwitterAppalachian FC FacebookAppalachian FC Instagram
{{North Carolina Sports 2021 establishments in North Carolina Association football clubs established in 2021 Soccer clubs in North Carolina Boone, North Carolina