Hi everyone,

It's been decided to wave goodbye to our Friday night sessions at Crocker-Amazon.  Though polling of members indicated that Fridays would work for many of you, those numbers probably reflected a preference for a field that was close by -- not out as far as Crocker.  We weren't able to generate enough numbers to make it worth continuing, so we're saying "Aloha!" to Friday nights.

Starting in mid-June we'll start up a second weeknight SF-based session again.  Date, time, and locations to be announced as soon as we know them.  For those of you who made it out to a Friday night session, thanks for giving it a go!  

See all you SF-based people Wednesday nights!

Starting next week, SoccerFours will have two new venues!

We will be running a Monday night session at Raimondi Field in west Oakland starting at 8pm and a Tuesday night session at the Tamalpais High School turf field in Mill Valley starting at 6:30pm.

After running SoccerFours for the past year in San Francisco and getting rave reviews from the people playing in the sessions, we've decided to make the investment and bring the SoccerFours experience to a bigger audience.

The East Bay location of Raimondi Field is located at 18th Street & Wood Street in Oakland.  For those not familiar with the field, it's a pretty new facility that Oakland invested a lot of money into, so it should be a great venue for us.  It's close to 880 and West Grand Avenue so it should be relatively easy to get to.

The Marin location of the Red Hill turf field is located at 200 Shaw Drive in San Anselmo.  This is also a brand new facility right behind the Safeway in the Red Hill Shopping Center.  We were pretty lucky to get this facility, so come on out and help us enjoy it.  :)

The first sessions at each of these two locations will be FREE so that we can give people a sample of what SoccerFours sessions are. 

There is SO much a SoccerFours session has to offer that once you get into it, you'll understand why so many in San Francisco have been making it part of their weekly routine.

According to a study undertaken by Dr. Rick Fenoglio of Manchester Metropolitan University in England found that in 4v4 games players get:

–         135% - more passes

–         260% - more attempts on goal

–         225% - more 1 on 1 encounters

 (Source:  Rick Fenoglio)

and these statistics are comparing 4v4 to 8v8.  Imagine how inflated these numbers would be if we were to compare this to a full sided 11v11 game!   (and the numbers would jump even higher if one's normal position on the field is in defense where attempting tricks and taking shots on goal happen once in a blue moon)

On top of these numbers there's also the benefits of:

• Improving fitness
• Improving your touch
• Becoming comfortable with the ball at your feet with opponents near
• Improving off-the-ball play (supporting your teammates by being available for passes)
• Improving your defensive skills
• Making new friends in a fun environment

What have you got to lose (besides some rust off your game)?

Register on the site and sign up for a session today!  You'll be glad you gave it a shot.

We're really happy to announce that just like flora in spring, SoccerFours will be blossoming in the month of March! 

Starting in a couple of weeks, we will be not only holding our weekly sessions at Franklin Square on Wednesday nights, but we will be offering Friday night sessions at Crocker Amazon!   In the polls we've recently held, Wednesday + Friday nights were the top vote getter, while field-wise the Marina was tops.  However it was discovered that SF Rec & Park doesn't allow "ground" sports (e.g. soccer) to use the field during the spring months, so we were left to look elsewhere. 

Spring 2010 also marks our first year anniversary.  Now that we've had a full year to offer SoccerFours to San Francisco, we've also had enough time to calculate our expenses versus earnings.  Unfortunately we were in the red for 2009, so SoccerFours will need to raise session rates from $5 per session to $7 per session in San Francisco.  The good news is that this small price increase combined with a little help from a better economy of scale should mean we'll not only have a positive margin for the coming year, but we can make good on our pledge to donate money to charity organizations in the communities we play in.

SoccerFours will be introducing special "season passes".  

• A 15 session pack gets you 15 sessions at either SF location for $90 ($6/session) 
• A SoccerFours Season Pass (all 30 sessions at Franklin OR Crocker-Amazon) for $150 ($5/session if one attends all 30 and still saves money per sessionl if they attend 22 sessions)with the added bonus of not having to register for each session.  Your spot's reserved (unfortunately, parking won't be).

Player cards will become required in the future (date to be announced).  Player cards will be issued for free, but if lost will cost $5 to replace.

We would like to thank you for helping make SoccerFours what it is today.  We're an absolutely terrific place to have fun playing soccer while also improving ourselves in a myriad of ways (cardio, skill-building, fitness-building).  We're looking forward to what the next year of our existence brings!

Stay tuned too as we may have some additional location announcements for the East Bay and Marin in the next month or so! 

The new year seems to have brought some rain and cold weather, but session turnout hasn't seemed to have been affected too badly thus far.  It's been fun to see how many people we're getting to the sessions even in the sub-optimal weather conditions!

There's a new poll up asking about where we should look to expand to.  It's open for all members to vote upon.  If you have a second to vote, we'd love to hear what your opinion is!

Player cards are on the horizon, so if you haven't uploaded a headshot picture into your SoccerFours profile it's time to start looking into it.  ;)