This wasnt posted by the club (youth academy?) but it is some positive news IMO.
http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081020/SPT/810200374/1062&template=printart

October 20, 2008

Soccer academy growing

The Kings are partner in non-profit organization

By John Erardi
jerardi@nky.com

WILDER - A few years ago, I received my wakeup call about what makes soccer players tick, when I traveled by bus to Pittsburgh with the Cincinnati Kings professional men's soccer team.

I learned the same thing makes soccer players tick that makes every professional athlete tick, once you're past the money: competition, camaraderie and the personal challenge to get the best out of oneself within the team concept. Oh, yeah - and laughs.

Gotta have laughs. If you're a kid who aspires to play high school and college soccer, and hopefully one day turn pro, read that road-trip story I wrote several years ago. Simply google "http://www.cincinnatikings.com/?page=Life_on_Road" target="_new">Erardi, Washington, Pa., and Kings." It's the lead item.

A lot has changed for the Kings. When I did the series on them, they were in the United Soccer League, Second Division, and were playing their home games at Xavier University. Now, they are utilizing local college players in a developmental league and play their home games at the Town & Country Soccer complex.

From my standpoint, the best thing about the Kings' continued presence in the community is that the soccer academy is being run by general manager J.T. Roberts, a former Northern Kentucky University All-American and present Hall of Famer. The director of coaching for Kings Soccer Academy is the former men's professional coach Jon Pickup, the fun-loving Englishman who was player-coach of the Kings when I covered them. And the owner of the Kings Academy is NKU-educated Yacoub Abdallahi, the African-born (Mauritania) son of a late fishing magnate, who has invested so much of himself in his adopted home.

"He's very much involved," Roberts says. "We talk all the time, and he'll be back in town at the end of this month."

I had lost track of Roberts, Pickup and Abdallahi the past few years, although I knew they had gotten involved at Town & Country. The move made sense. What Abdallahi wanted - above all else - was to have control of his own soccer complex. He's got it now, because when you think soccer in Greater Cincinnati - especially Northern Kentucky - you think Town & Country, because the outdoor fields are always a beehive whenever you drive by on I-275 on weekends and weeknights.

In a nutshell, here is how the organization works now:

River City Soccer Operating owns both Town & Country and the Cincinnati Kings, the former pro team that still has a franchise, but isn't playing in the pro league, anymore. The Kings Soccer Academy is a separate organization from River City and the Kings. Kings Soccer Academy is a non-profit organization, formed through the merger of NK United and Cardinal Soccer Club, and has a partnership with the Kings.

The main outdoor field at Town & Country, which is one of those neat, all-weather surfaces that feels just like grass when you walk on it, is being replaced Dec. 1. The turf is almost 11 years old (it was installed in February, 1998), which means that Town & County has more than gotten its use out of it. The field is used about 340 days a year. Typically, such fields last 8-9 years.

I didn't know that NK United and the renowned Cardinals Soccer Club had merged into the Kings Soccer Academy until I talked with Roberts.

Both NK United and the Cardinals will benefit - NK United because of the quality of the competition, and the Cardinals because of the proximity of Town & County, a short drive across the Ohio River from Anderson Township. More than 1,200 youth are now being served by Kings Soccer Academy, Roberts says.

I've never been very knowledgeable about soccer, nor ever really covered it, except for my Kings experience.

But I knew about the Cardinals, and how the strength of their program transcended their sport. (It had to have transcended, in order to have reached me.) Lo and behold, there's the announcement, right on the Kings web site:

"The members of the boards of both NK United and the Cardinal Soccer Club (a subsidiary of Girls' Southeast Soccer Association) are proud to announce (their merger) ... The club will be known as Kings Soccer Academy."

Town & Country is holding its anniversary open house this Sunday from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.