USL Feature
Thursday, February 3, 2011
By NICHOLAS MURRAY
To say one person was responsible for the return of the Wilmington Hammerheads could easily be thought of as overly simplistic. After all, it took an ownership group led by Bill Rudisill and other investors to have the team preparing for the 2011 USL PRO season.
But talk to those around the club and the name of head coach David Irving invariably comes up as the man who was the driving force behind the club’s re-emergence from a collapse that might have sunk a lesser franchise.
“He kept coming by to see me in those months, and another couple of my ownership partners contacted him through one of his players and that’s how all of this got started,” Rudisill said in a recent phone interview. “He was the driving force behind me getting back into this.”
“From what I understand, talking to him and talking to other people, if it wasn’t for him, I don’t think the team would exist,” Eric Conklin, President of the Hammerheads’ supporters club the Port City Firm, said. “His heart is 100 percent behind it, and I know there are other people that were involved in helping and there are other people that definitely deserve thanks like Bill Rudisill - without him they wouldn’t be here - but I think the driving force to make it happen was David Irving.”
Irving has lived his life in soccer, playing and managing both in England and the United States. He became the Hammerheads head coach in 1998 and oversaw the club’s 2003 USL Pro Soccer League championship. The passion he has for the game, and the following and history the club had developed since its inaugural season in 1996, was what drove Irving to find a way to get the club back on the field.
“I’m passionate about what we had here in Wilmington,” Irving said. “We had tradition, we had over 2,000 people coming to games over the length of the team’s history, great support from the local community and it was a big part of the community.”
Bringing the club back was far from an easy task, though.
“There were several other investors where it was looking like it was going to come to fruition and then they would back out,” Conklin said. “It was kind of heart-wrenching because it would seem like it was going to exist, and then would be dead again, and then it was going to exist, then it was dead again, that just kept happening.”
But Irving’s efforts were gaining Rudisill’s attention. Good friends away from the Hammerheads, Irving would remind his friend of the opportunity they had to bring the Hammerheads back. Then after a public meeting on September 21, 2010, Rudisill had resisted as long as he could.
“I pushed back as long as I could,” Rudisill said, “but I just felt like the town and David had worked hard to get it going back and it was all good.
“Soccer has always done really well [here], and in that meeting it was pretty clear that the town wanted it back. We had been hearing it, so I guess at that point I said we would get it back. I love Wilmington, North Carolina. It’s my home, I’ve done alright here and it’s just something I love, the Hammerheads. I’ve got a lot of energy and a lot of time and it’s a great thing, we’ve heard so many compliments, ‘thank you for doing this’, ‘we’re so excited’.”
That led to the press conference on November 9 which saw the Hammerheads’ return.
“It was pretty emotional for myself,” Irving said of the press conference, “and I’ve got to say without Bill Rudisill’s involvement I don’t think this would have happened. He was passionate about his Hammerheads and he was so about the community, he and his family, he was the key to bringing it together.”
Now the challenge is for the Hammerheads to rebuild a side that can compete in USL PRO. With players like Jamie Watson, who was USL-2 MVP for Wilmington in 2009, Colin Falvey and Mark Briggs having moved on to other clubs, Irving is having to build his squad from scratch. The signings of forward Chris Banks, defender Chris Spendlove and midfielders Richard Jata and Tom Taylor have started that process, but there’s still a lot to do in the coming two months before the Hammerheads host the Rochester Rhinos on April 16 to open the season.
But after coming this far, Irving is looking forward to conquering another challenge.
“It’s a challenge, but a great challenge,” Irving said. “We’re just happy to be back and we’ve got a great flag to fly for the Wilmington Hammerheads.”