The San Diego Sparks Soccer Club is enjoying an extremely successful start to their 18th season playing in the San Diego County Soccer League, proving they are a force to be reckoned with in the predominantly straight soccer league. The Sparks are currently tied for first place in the Third Division, with an impressive 8-1 record.

Leslie Randolph, the Sparks Soccer Club’s coach and one of its founding members when the team was formed in 1986, said a 3-0 win against the Rangers on Jan. 16 was a key victory this season.

“We were without our regular striker and because of the depth of the team and the heart behind the team, we sort of just dug deep and through sheer adrenaline and a sense of cohesiveness we had a shut-out and scored three times,” Randolph said. “We just surprised them with how tenacious we were, how physically adept we were in dealing with the current conditions.”

Randolph explained that the game featured a turf field surface rather than grass, which the team regularly competes and practices on. Due to rainouts and the holiday season, it had been almost a month since the team had played a game.

Despite injuries to various key players on the team and numerous rained-out games, the Sparks have been able to keep their intensity through this season and remain in contention to win their division. The Sparks currently have one of the best defensive units with the lowest goals against average in the division, allowing only seven goals in nine games played.

Last August, the Sparks captured first place in Division 2 of the International Gay and Lesbian Football (IGLFA) tournament held in San Francisco. Randolph said he hopes the team can defend their title this coming summer when the IGLFA competition kicks off July 31 in Copenhagen, Denmark.

The Sparks are sponsored by Bourbon Street, but count on other fundraising efforts throughout the year to allow team members to travel to tournaments such the IGLFA annual competition. The FIFA World Cup will be held in Germany in 2006, and Randolph hopes to organize a team trip to watch some games.

The Sparks are increasing their recruitment efforts in order to prepare for the stiff competition they will face in Europe as well as here in the U.S. Randolph hopes to lure some of the gay Latino populations.

“We’re starting to try to specifically recruit the natural population that plays soccer. We think that rests in a lot of the Latinos,” said Randolph. “Strangely enough, Mexico being a soccer-playing nation, having a lot of Mexican nationals here, we don’t seem to have the gay Mexican population embracing us, and we are not sure why that is.”

The Sparks have been making an effort to reach out to the local bars and clubs and will continue to do so this year. “What we are trying to do also is go to the Latino nights at different bars and engage in some real kinds of recruitment strategies as a team. We will show up in uniform with prearrangements with the bar and permission from the bar,” he said.

As the only gay team in a straight league, Randolph said the Sparks have gained respect from other teams and he does not feel there is any animosity directed at the team.

“For the most part, given our history of the team, we are reasonably well known by most of the teams who are there,” he said. “We have no problems with raising the flag of our colors while we are there. We are a well-respected team because of our skills; because most of these teams we’ve beaten at one time or another.”

Last Sunday, the Sparks suffered their first loss of the season, a 2-1 setback to RBFC. Leading 1-0 going into the second half, the Sparks could not hold on to the lead. RBFC scored the winning goal with about 10 minutes left in the game and now has an identical 8-1 record, tied for first place in the Third Division.

The Sparks next game is on Sunday, March 6, against AG Alliance at Robb Field in Ocean Beach at 1:00 p.m. For more information on the team, visit this article online at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link to their website.