NICK MULVANEY’S AMBITIONS were no different to those of any other young Irish footballer. A professional career with a big club in England was at the top of his list.
At the age of 33, he admits now that he didn’t have the ability to upgrade that ambition to anything more than a dream. Yet life can often take you to places you never intended to go, while ultimately leaving you feeling fortunate to have ended up there.
Having played his underage football with St Kevin’s Boys and Ashbourne United, Mulvaney began to accept that his hopes of hitting the big-time in the UK were fading as he approached the end of his time in secondary school.
He opted to head to the US for his third-level education, spending four years at William Carey University in Mississippi where he earned a degree in physical education. More importantly, however, Mulvaney’s decision to cross the Atlantic opened doors that allowed him to lay the foundations for the role he finds himself in now.
Five years since he was behind the foundation of Chicago City Soccer Club, they field nearly 50 teams for 650 kids, and employ 12 full-time staff — as well as several others on a part-time basis — who are responsible for coaching and other areas like operations, marketing and social media. According to Mulvaney, they’re the largest soccer club in downtown Chicago.
“My own journey in football, I couldn’t be happier with how it’s gone and I’m very grateful,” he told The42 while at home in his native Dublin for Christmas. “Everyone over there knows the club now, we’re playing in all the top divisions and we’re playing the right way. That’s the biggest thing for me.
“A lot of the American teams will take the kick-and-run approach because they’re very athletic and they’re good at it. But we focus on playing out from the back, playing through midfield, and then into the final third from there. We sometimes lose games by doing that but we’ve explained to our players and their parents why we’re doing it, and that they’ll understand it more clearly when they get older.
“Sticking to that has been difficult, but we have done it. And shouting at the kids is not our style. We just want to do things in what we believe is the right way, in terms of how we conduct ourselves both on and off the field. So far, so good.”
Mulvaney, who hails from Garristown in North County Dublin, first discovered his appetite for coaching when he chipped in with St Kevin’s Boys’ younger teams at the age of 17. That continued in Mississippi, where he also played college soccer before going on to have a playing stint with a semi-professional side in New Orleans.
When a friend in Chicago offered him a gig there, he made the move and advanced his coaching qualifications for a couple of years. But Mulvaney wasn’t ready to bring his playing career to a halt yet. He remained slightly curious about what he might be able to achieve in the UK and moved to London to suss out the possibilities.
He sought to work his way up from non-league football with Royston Town and Hitchin Town, but with scant financial rewards making it difficult to earn a living, Mulvaney soon found himself back in Chicago. He picked up a job as director of coaching with Chicago Lakefront Attack, a club which consisted of 100 young players. It proved to be a turning point.
The owners eventually expressed their desire to walk away and wanted someone to keep the club going. They handed the keys over to Mulvaney, he stuck a new name above the door and gave it a lick of paint. In 2012, Chicago City Soccer Club was born.
“Everyone talks about player development,” Mulvaney says. “We do that too, but we’ve stuck by it. I’ve had coaches coming in from clubs where they had to win. If that’s your mentality, this isn’t the club for you. There’s no pressure like that from me. What we do is for player development. We feel it’s the right way, and that the success will come from there.”
The club is funded by the annual fees paid by its players, which vary between approximately $1,500 and $3,000. Staff payroll and renting eight-to-ten pitches from the city are their main expenses. Securing their own playing premises is one of the next items on the club’s agenda as they look to continue their expansion.
“Those fees might be difficult to grasp for people in Ireland, but it’s very normal for sport over there because of the way it works. If the kids are really into it, the parents will invest,” Mulvaney explains.
“It’s also an investment that kind of leads towards college. It can be 60 or 70 grand a year to go to college. If a kid can get a scholarship from it then it’s absolutely worth it.”
The club currently caters for kids from five-to-eighteen years of age, but a move into adult football is imminent. Although his role is now mostly office-based, Mulvaney will be the head coach next year when Chicago City join the WPSL [Women's Professional Soccer League], which will act as a feeder league for female college students. A men’s team looks set to follow in 2019, with a new league in the pipeline to act as the third tier on the US football pyramid.
In his overall vision for Chicago City, Mulvaney continues to be inspired by the club where it all started for him: “I want us to be comprehensive, in terms of offering recreational soccer but also the elite side of it for those who want to pursue that.
“But ultimately I want us to remain a community club. I grew up in St Kevin’s and I always go back to them. It’s a community club. All the same faces are still there from when I was there. I want that.”
Chicago City’s young teams have been making their mark at local and national level, which was acknowledged in 2016 when they became one of Bayern Munich’s affiliate clubs in the US.
“Bayern set up an office in New York in 2014 and their main goal is to find players — that needle in the haystack — while also increasing their fans and their footprint in the US. They’re looking at the U11 and U12 age bracket,” Mulvaney says.
“It provides opportunities for players — boys and girls – to go over to Munich and train in their academy. It’s a good partnership. They also share their curriculum with us, we stay in touch every month with conference calls, we wear their kit, stuff like that.
“I was there for a technical visit in October and they really emphasised their philosophy and methodology with us. They want us to use their systems, formations and everything they do as much as we can, so that when a kid goes over there they understand what’s expected of them.
“We have to meet the standards set out too because ultimately we’re wearing their badge so we have to keep that up. If you’re not running your club how you should be, they’ll pull away.”
England may always be the desired destination for young footballers from this part of the world. However, based on his own experiences, Mulvaney is keen for Irish boys and girls to know that there are opportunities to make a good living from the game elsewhere.
“When I played with Kevin’s, we had boys going to England all the time,” he says. “We know there are rare cases where you have late developers, but if you’re not getting interest from clubs between the age of 13 and 16, let’s say, then I think it’s hard to make the breakthrough beyond that. Maybe then it’s time to look at what else is out there.
“When I was younger I wish my dad had taken me over to England to tour even some of the lower-level clubs, just to see the level and to see how difficult it can be to get there. I was never going to be a Premier League player and I eventually realised that.
“There’s a pro league in America and you’ve also got great opportunities in college. The thing about college is that you’re behaving like a pro because you’re training every single day. College gives you that professional environment and the additional bonus at the end of it is that you’ll also have a degree.
“As much as I love it here at home, there’s also a great lifestyle over there. You can never stop a kid from chasing the dream in England but it’s important for them to know that there are other options if football is the ambition as a career.”
For Mulvaney and Chicago City, there’s competition on their doorstep from the likes of Chicago Fire and Chicago Red Stars, who currently represent the city in the top tier of men’s and women’s football respectively in the US. But having witnessed so much progress since it was established, Mulvaney isn’t putting any limitations on what his club can achieve.
He says: “I’m over the moon, both in terms of where I am personally and how things have gone with the club. We’ve come a long way in a short space of time, but I believe there’s a lot more we can still do.
“On a personal level, since I started coaching with Kevin’s at the age of 17, I think I’ve always been good at working with kids. I got my coaching licences fairly early as well.
“I want to be able to affect people’s lives for the better. Coaching kids, regardless of the ability level, allowed me to do that. I feel very fortunate to have this opportunity to essentially have my own club where I can instil my own philosophy and my own beliefs. That’s been huge for me.
“In terms of being involved in a football club, I don’t think I could be happier. I’m full-time in the game, making a decent living, getting to do a bit of travelling… I wouldn’t change it for the world.”
