Harrisburg City

The Islanders were one of the USL teams in the ruins of the league after many teams moved up to the MLS and NASL. This may have been a good thing for the Islanders. Less competition and watered down talent helped the Islanders in the late teens. A new manager came in for the 2015 season, from Scranton, he wanted to help out a close team. They picked up two midfielders from the NASL looking to play in 2015, and a player from Liberia to put in back. He also started building up an academy system, purchasing the local Harrisburg youth club and rebranding it to match the pro team. They improved immensely, finishing 6 games above .500. They thought they could be better. At open tryouts, a graduate from Penn State came out and turned heads in defense. They signed him to a good contract. They worked out a deal for a striker from Sporting to play on loan there. The team was built up and would win the championship in 2016. Their coach and two defenders made the move to Union. Their assistant coach went in and picked up where the team left off running the same offense as the previous coach. Their academy attracted players from all over the area looking for a break into pro soccer. With a strong class of guys from the youth system, and the new deal with the Union to give youth players first team time, the Islanders won a second title in 3 years in 2018. That year, they signed a deal for a new 8,000 seat stadium not on City Island, and now downtown. The team rebranded to just Harrisburg City for this occasion. They haven’t had much success since then, due to the players moving through the system then jumping to better teams. The expansion of the USL and more teams with money to spend made the league much harder to play in. They probably are in League Two for the near future, but anything is possible. I didn’t want to keep them the Islanders because of Puerto Rico, and I thought the name could work. The kits are pretty basic, with horizontal striping. The logo is a stylized keystone, with two stars for the championships, and Pennsylvania being the 2nd state. I wanted something that could last.