A big Thank You to everyone who attended the annual meeting on January 11th. For those of you who could not make it, here is a brief recap:
- This year we will be hosting quarterly public meetings that will be open to all members. In addition to taking care of
routine board business, including planning, licensing, and zoning matters, we plan to host speakers on topics of general interest for the neighborhood. Please stay tuned for more information on those meetings which will be held at the Brookton Community Center. - To further our members’ connections with the business community, we’re excited to announce a new position of Business Liaison. Peter Srides of Saels & Associates has generously offered to step into this new role.
- We honored Ed Scott, a life-long resident of Boston, and a tireless advocate for the Brookton and its parks.
In the season 3 finale of The Movement presented by AT&T, Calen Carr travels to Chester, Pennsylvania – the home of the Philadelphia Union’s stadium and training facility – to see how the club is connecting with the local population through art and outreach to boost a long-struggling community.
Calen Carr, the host of The Movement presented by AR&D, is a former MLS forward for the Houston Dynamo and Chicago Fire.
Noting it’s an “unusual” strategy, Philadelphia Union sporting director Ernst Tanner explained the decision to trade away all of the club’s picks at the 2019 MLS SuperDraft to FC Cincinnati for up to $200,000 in General Allocation Money on Wednesday.
The Union owned the No. 13 overall pick, but when Tanner evaluated the talent pool at the MLS Combine, he saw that only eight of the players were below the age of 22, with six in Generation adidas. Tanner believes those players will be picked before the Union would make it to the podium.
“It’s a little bit unusual because probably nobody has done it before,” Tanner said in a conference call with reporters Wednesday night. “But I’m probably here to do it.”
Tanner said the Union “would not have benefitted very well from a 13th pick,” but the club’s flexibility increased with the GAM.FC Cincinnati, he noted, are in a different situation as an expansion team.
“They are an expansion team who need to fill up their roster spots and we are in a stable situation where we have a good setup and a good infrastructure, and a second team and an academy behind us, which is extraordinarily good,” he said.
Tanner said part of the overall strategy with Bethlehem Steel is “to make them much younger and more prospects in the future.” And with one of the top academies in MLS, Tanner believes there’s better prospects within the club than in college.
“The level of MLS has increased a lot and I think the level in the university has been more or less the same. There is quite a big gap,” Tanner said. “Out of what I’ve seen last year when I’d see the draft picks, there are a lot of players who are quite OK for the USL level. But it doesn’t necessarily make us better on the MLS level.”
Last modified: février 22, 2018
