Jamie Vardy ownership commitment roars Rochester Rhinos back to soccer relevance.
/ Buffalo News
Out of the headlines and off the field since 2017, the Rochester Rhinos professional soccer team sent shockwaves through Western New York soccer Tuesday when Jamie Vardy, the star striker for Leicester City in the English Premier League, announced he has joined the club’s ownership group while remaining a professional player.
The Athletic UK’s Stuart James broke the news, interviewing Vardy, who did not reveal his percentage of ownership stake in the Rhinos, as well as David and Wendy Dworkin, the Rhinos’ owners since 2016. The best quote from The Athletic’s piece comes from David, who connected the English No. 9’s beer choice with the humble mentality in Rochester.
“Jamie’s story and our story, and our city, they mix together so well,” David told James. “Jamie wouldn’t do well at the Beverly Hills Rhinos. That’s not him. Our first meeting, he was drinking Corona beer. I said, ‘Why Corona?’ He said, ‘It was on sale’. Here’s a guy making £10 million and he’s drinking a $3 beer because it’s on sale! That’s what we like about Jamie. There are no airs about him. What you see is what you get.”
The report articulates why Vardy chose the dormant Rhinos, as opposed to an established Major League Soccer club or an expansion side. “Finding a franchise that meant something” is how Vardy worded the decision, which was rumored as far back as two years ago, according to sources in Rochester soccer.
The Rhinos, an A-League team that stunned the U.S. soccer world by winning the U.S. Open Cup in 1999 – besting four Major League Soccer teams in the single-elimination tournament, have fallen out of the national soccer conversation since that title, when Rochester was briefly in the mix for a Major League Soccer franchise. Fans and media have long viewed the 1999 victory as a missed opportunity for a “next step” up the soccer pyramid, but perhaps Vardy’s involvement will signal a return to the Flower City’s glory days.
Vardy’s unusual career arc has been well-chronicled, particularly during Leicester City’s improbable run to EPL glory in 2016, the same year the Dworkins bought the Rhinos. Just five years prior to hoisting the Premier League trophy, Vardy, then 24, was working a day job making splints and trying to catch on with FC Halifax Town in the fifth tier of English soccer.
In an age where 5-year-olds are groomed at club academies and teenagers commonly make Premier League clubs’ game-day rosters, Vardy’s late blooming is a rags to riches tale that’s bound for the big screen soon. This profile by The Guardian on Vardy elaborates on the batty path to being selected for the 2018 England World Cup squad and winning the 2021 FA Cup.
Vardy admitted in The Athletic interview that he’s never visited Rochester and never met the Dworkins in person, and the Rhinos have yet to announce any league affiliation since the 2018 announcement that Rochester would join the United Soccer League’s third tier in 2020 (which never happened).
According to a press conference Tuesday, the Rhinos will play in a yet-to-be-announced league in 2022 at the Henrietta home of their youth club affiliate, Empire United. When Rochester previously participated in the USL in 2016, the Rhinos played at city-owned Marina Auto Stadium before the Dworkins’ relationship with the City of Rochester soured. The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported then that the owners were exploring sites for a new stadium elsewhere in Monroe County.
A different professional team is slated to begin play in Rochester next year, too; the Flower City Union has joined the National Independent Soccer Association (NISA) and will play its home matches at Marina Auto. Presently, the minor league men’s soccer clubs in the city include the Rochester Lancers of the National Premier Soccer League (NPSL) and the Roc City Boom of the United Premier Soccer League (UPSL).