Few would argue that metro Atlanta is not a soccer-crazed region. Last month, Mercedes-Benz Stadium hosted the U.S. Women’s National Team with a record crowd, and Atlanta United regularly sets MLS attendance marks. Starting tonight, soccer fans have another local team to support as Decatur FC makes its Women’s Premier Soccer League (WPSL) debut.
Gareth O’Sullivan has worked in women’s soccer in the US for years, including in the Women’s Professional Soccer league (WPS) where he coached the Atlanta Beat. As an entrepreneur, soccer fan, and Decatur resident, he thought the progressive city east of Atlanta was the perfect place for a new semi-professional women’s soccer team.
So in 2022, he began working with current Decatur FC head coach and Gwinnett Soccer Academy technical director Campbell Chapman to bring a WPSL team to the city of 24,000 residents.
‘Cool situation for the City’
“I really looked at it about a year-and-a-half ago and just felt it was a cool situation for the City of Decatur just based on where the high school is and where the square is and everything,” O’Sullivan said in an interview at the team’s Thursday practice at the Arizona Avenue soccer fields in nearby Kirkwood. “As a business owner in the Square and from a soccer background, I felt this could be a cool setup if we could do it right.”
Their primary issue, he said, was securing a field for the team to play on. Soccer fields are notoriously limited in Atlanta, and teams often fight for space. O’Sullivan and Chapman didn’t believe playing at Decatur High School was possible when they initially began their proposal, and the project seemed futile.
OPENING MATCH: Decatur FC vs. Atlanta Fire United, Fri., May 24 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $10 and available here.
“We didn’t think the high school was going to be available,” Chapman said. “So we sort of shelved it, always with a plan [to] revisit it. And obviously, the stadium was going to be the catalyst to whether we were going to make this work. Once we got the stadium, then it was a case of ‘Now, okay, I want to put the team together.’”
The players
O’Sullivan let Chapman take the lead on building a roster, relying on his years of coaching college to identify and recruit talented players for the team. The opening day roster has four players from Georgia State, two from LSU, two from Georgia Southern, and players from various other NCAA teams.
The oldest is Wasila Diwura-Soale, a 27-year-old who was looking for an opportunity to return to playing soccer after a career at LSU. On the other end, Chapman’s daughter, Emma, a Decatur High School graduate who plays at Georgia State, is one of the youngest.
That locality adds to Decatur FC’s draw for the city residents. O’Sullivan also owns O’Sullivan’s Irish Pub on Decatur Square, which is hosting a party before the opening game to kick off the club’s inaugural season and will host watch parties for four away games. O’Sullivan says the support they’ve gotten from the community has been “amazing.”
Fan support
“Everyone from the mayor down has been 100% behind it and engaged in the process,” O’Sullivan said. The team has sold about 250 season tickets for the five home games at Decatur High School. They expect around a thousand people for the opening match against Atlanta Fire United on Fri., May 24 at 7 p.m.
“I’m a Decatur resident,” Chapman said. “Which definitely helps because when you’re in the city, you’ve got a feel for the pulse of the city. When you start talking about it a ways away. Then all of a sudden, you have the uniform unveiling, and the city puts the flags up downtown. This team is going to represent Decatur, for sure.”
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Editor’s Note: This story has been updated to reflect the name of the soccer league in which O’Sullivan coached the Atlanta Beat. It was the WPS, not the WUSA.
