The Barnwell Soccer Club was founded in 1995 to allow all children within our area to have the opportunity to enjoy the greatest sport in the world. Built on volunteer board members, volunteer coaches, and amazing sponsors and donors.
The original founders of the club were Marty Harvey and Marty Martin. Their vision was to provide guidance in the playing of soccer for the children in Barnwell County and to help build a good stable of players for our school programs.
Presidents have included: Marty Harvey (Harvey & Kulmala), Marty Martin, George T. Smith, Sammy Rush, Kenneth Kinard, Jerry Hodge and John McHenry.
We are blessed to be one of the smaller clubs in the state with dedicated soccer fields. These fields were made possible by donations from the Moore Family, John Leonard, Wade Jackson, Clariant, Don Houck and many more that we hope to recognize here.
Our small club fielded teams that have gone on to great seasons. In 2003 the Lady Mavericks were runner ups for the State Championship. In 2006 the Wild Mustangs became State Champions in U16. We hope to add to their legacy.
Players from the Barnwell Soccer Club have gone on to play at Southern Methodist College, Lander, USC Beaufort, USC Salkehatchie and Coker College among others.
Following is a letter to the editor from back in 2001 written be then President Marty Harvey: We have not quite met all of the goals yet....
President’s Column
We
have come a long way.
In 1991, youth soccer in Barnwell
was an activity offered by the Barnwell Recreation Department. Up until then, soccer was for boys who were
just biding their time waiting to get big enough to play football. Not many folks took soccer seriously. A female soccer player was extremely rare,
and those girls who wanted to play had to play with the boys. Uniforms were t-shirts and whatever pair of
shorts the child pulled out of his drawer that afternoon to wear. The only thing coaches knew about the rules
of the game were what someone else had told them. The referees were, for the most part, players
on the high school soccer team. There
was not a rule book in sight. Games were played on fields that were too small,
had potholes, and were unlighted.
In 1991, a group of boys came
along that loved the game, were pretty good at it, and showed potential. Their parents thought that was cool. Over the next 2 years, those boys and their
parents began to believe there was more to youth soccer than what was being
played in Barnwell. I bought a rule
book. That threw some of the other
coaches into a tizzy. The next year I talked my team’s parents into spending a
little extra money to outfit the 11 boys and 2 girls in full uniforms, complete
with matching socks. Though the parents
of the other teams’ players were a little envious, they wanted it for their
children, too. It looked like we had
something going there.
Something else was going on. As the players got better, the competition
among friends became fierce. It was
difficult on the players and the parents.
We were able to play teams from Blackville and Williston but they
weren’t that competitive. We started
asking around about coaching education and competition outside of Barnwell.
As we asked questions in larger
towns with established programs, we decided uniforms and rule books were not
enough. Jjm Washburn, Marty Martin, Joey
King and I began to explore the requirements for affiliation with the US Soccer
Federation and we developed a vision for youth soccer in Barnwell -- better
trained and better equipped players, more knowledgeable coaches, certified
referees and informed parents. We formed
this club with that vision.
After the first year, we decided
to bring Coast to Coast Soccer Academy to Barnwell to hold a day camp to train
our kids. The camp was well-attended by
boys and girls alike. The following Fall
we had a large number of girls enroll in the program. When I looked at the list, I brought it to
the Board’s attention and we decided to experiment with an all-girls
league. When word of it got out to the
schools, we had to turn down applications from girls because we didn’t have
enough coaches. Our girls program is now
the shining star of team sports in our club and, personally speaking, is my
proudest accomplishment.
Our club is now a model for other towns in our
area. Hampton and Bamberg have copied our
system. I get telephone calls every
month asking how we do things here.
The fields remain a problem. George Smith and Joey King took the lead to
get lights on the fields at Lemon Park.
This allowed for more games to be played, but we still did not have
enough room to practice. We still needed
regulation fields to play on.
Marty Martin and George Smith have
been diligently working with other community volunteers to address the
facilities problem. They have brought to
the point of life a proposed recreation complex to be built here in
Barnwell. If the City and County
Councils allow the referendum in November, and you get out and vote, by 2003,
we will have a gem of a facility comparable to Aiken’s Citizen’s Park. The plans call for 2 full-size soccer fields
and 10 acres of practice fields!
Achieving the full vision is in sight, but we cannot think we have it
made.
Marty Martin tells me the plan is
for the new facility to have a full-time director of recreation who will
oversee all youth sports. This is a
great idea, but parents will still need to be involved. This club will need to remain viable to be a
voice for the kids and to make sure that soccer is never put on the back seat
again. If no one is there to speak for
the kids, even with the new facility, soccer will revert to what it was in 1991
and those of you who have children who really love the game will be very
disappointed.
We must renew our vision. We should not only continue to strive for
better trained players and coaches. We
should consider the possibility of having soccer for 4 and 5 year olds. We have an active group of girls playing in
the Spring. We should work to give boys
an opportunity to play in the Spring as well.
More coaches and committed parents are the main ingredients for both
these goals.