The Heidelberg Golden Tornadoes now

When a group of local men playing for the Heidelberg Soccer Club took first place in the Pittsburgh Masters Soccer League this past fall, the trophy they took home was symbolic of more than the quality of their play on the field. It also represented a re-birth of sorts for the Heidelberg Club, which has a long and storied history in local soccer, but had languished in recent years.

The club was formed in the early 20th century when a group of Heidelberg boys organized a team. In 1927, Heidelberg was the first Western team to win the National Amateur Challenge Trophy by defeating the Eastern champions, the La Flamme Cobblers of New Bedford, Massachusetts. Later, the United States Football Association honored the Heidelberg team by selecting Berk Jones, a Heidelberg player, to be a member of the 1936 U.S. Olympic soccer team. Newspaper articles dubbed the team “The Golden Tornados” and called Heidelberg “The Soccer Capital of the United States.”

Craig Drinkhall, who had long been involved with local soccer, found his interest in the club piqued when he learned that much of the club’s history was being lost as players and coaches moved away or on to other interests. To keep the tradition alive, he scanned old photos and news articles, and set up the website www.heidelbergsoccer.com, which recently has been getting 5,000 page views a month.

The group officially reorganized with a June, 2006 Charter signing. “Now that we have our website, we’re getting so much material donated that I can hardly keep up with posting it,” Drinkhall says. For instance, Joe Utchel, a former player, recently contacted him. Joe’s father and grandfather also played for the club. Utchel and Drinkhall sat for four hours sifting through boxes of photos and found nearly 120 pictures of players, coaches, teams, fields, and events dating back more than 50 years. There is a special section on the website dedicated to soccer player photos from old Chartiers Valley High School yearbooks.

“The club is much larger than the games,” Drinkhall says. “It is about community and bringing together friends and family. It creates friendships that last forever. We have a circle of hundreds of friends who have bonded together because of our experience with the Heidelberg Soccer Club.”

The recently winning team includes Lee Fisher (current president of the Chartiers Valley Soccer Association), Pat Tinney, Lee Coughenour, Sam Grande, Craig Drinkhall, Mike Wissell (former CVSA president for twelve years), Jim LaSota, Dave McKelvey, Vince Schmidt, Tom Benedik, and Jamie Hilton.

“All the players are experienced and have usually grown up playing soccer,” says Craig Drinkhall, President of the Heidelberg Soccer Club’s Board of Directors. “Almost all the teams we play are also filled with players who have played more than 30 years. So they’re competitive too. We know the game, and we definitely play a ball-control game with lots of passing and great skill.”

Jamie Hilton played soccer all through high school and college and then didn’t really touch the game again until he joined the over-40 league five years ago. He continues to play for the fun and the exercise. “The skill level has not decreased at all. There are guys out there who can still give the younger guys a run for their money,” Hilton says. “I have actually learned to play smarter because I am not as strong and fast as I used to be. At my age, I feel good about what I am doing on the field and that I can still be doing this. I love playing the game and am so glad I started up again.”

The Heidelberg club is also, for the first time ever, fielding a team of over-50 players.

And to test the theory that the older guys can still hang with the younger players, Heidelberg is once again competing in the Greater Pittsburgh Soccer League’s Open Age bracket, where players of any age can compete.