The Thunder Soccer Club has begun seeking land on which to build as many as 10 playing fields for exclusive use by its teams, the western Howard County's group's president says.
"We're looking for, probably, about 20 acres," said David Gould, a Baltimore County printing company owner who became the club's president this year. "What we're really looking for is practice space."
The club, which has more than 300 players, fielded 22 youth teams this spring and expects to have as many as 35 teams when fall competition begins, Gould said. The club concentrates on travel play - meaning play for more skilled, competitive players. Recreation-level teams in the western section of the county operate under a separate group and also compete for fields.
Thunder teams would continue playing most of their home games at Schooley Mill and Alpha Ridge parks. But like other western county sports groups, the club is counting on the opening of Western Regional Park in two years, Gould said.
"We're talking with developers, with others and in southern Carroll County," Gould said. He also expressed interest in farmland owned by the county's Department of Recreation and Parks in West Friendship, where the department proposed a golf course about two years ago. That was rejected, but the department still owns the land.
Entry into the real estate market makes the Thunder organization the third youth sports group in Howard County in two years to seek land for its needs.
The 6,000-player Soccer Association of Columbia/Howard County is waiting out an appeal of zoning approval on a 10-field Covenant Park complex off Centennial Lane, near Centennial Park, in Ellicott City. Two weeks ago, the club also entered a 15-year lease agreement to improve and share with the school three playing fields at Howard Community College.
This spring, the Howard County Youth Program, based in Ellicott City, said it has been placing money in escrow for new baseball and softball diamonds, as well as a gym for basketball and volleyball.
A common denominator for the soccer groups is frustration with field maintenance, especially on those owned by the county school system.
Gould raised a point that SAC/HC also has made frequently about soccer-specific fields: "We want to get fields that can support the quality of play we're trying to teach as a club, and you just can't do that on what's available now."
And, Gould said, "Soccer is the [scheduling] priority in the fall, but lacrosse gets it in the spring. ... It's a huge problem in the west. As the western county grows, it just puts more and more pressure on fields."