There is a new club in Vermont that is looking to bridge the gap for soccer players in the Green Mountain state.
Vermont Clover announced its arrival and that it would be playing in the UPSL, a fourth-division league comparable to USL League Two. The club located in Burlington will look to build off the success of Vermont Green FC and create further soccer infrastructure for the state.
The club got its name like a lot of lower-league clubs in the United States. After kicking around some names with club co-founder Trey Bosworth, Bosworth threw out Vermont Clover to co-founder Chris George.
"Then we did a little more research and the actual plant kind of says everything that we want to say," George told The Blazing Musket. "It's, really resistant to a harsh environment and it's not native like most Vermonters aren't native to here. Even if you've been here for seven generations, you came from somewhere just like the clover came from places all over. It really reflects Vermont's agricultural background. You use it for all sorts of different stuff. It's great for pollinators, the cows use it, it's really soil enriching. Farmers grow it as as not just field cover, but as crop rotational stuff. So it kind of fits where we want to enhance the soccer that's being played in Vermont, just like the clover, the state flower, is kind of enhancing the soil that's so important to the agricultural and rural heritage that we've got going on."
With the Green's rapid success, the club has become for the the most elite college players in the nation. For George, he wants to provide a space for Vermonters who might not fall into that ultra-elite category to continue working on their craft.
George's soccer journey took him to Green Mountain College where he played the game at the collegiate level. He would eventually return to the school as a coach before ending up at SUNY Adirondack.
Like many, the COVID pandemic provided a moment of reflection and an opportunity for a reset. George ended up coaching a local high school men's side before returning to coaching collegiately at Paul Smith College.
After being involved in the club scene in Vermont, George found inspiration after the success of Vermont Green FC. After bouncing the idea of a few people, the club that would become Vermont Clover was born.
The club ended up choosing the UPSL due to its low barrier to entry. Additionally, there are around 25 teams between the premier New England division and Division 1.
"That's the beauty of what lower league football is all about, right? The real beauty in it is that there's so much great stuff that's really great and eally beautiful that isn't the absolute top stuff," George said. "There's great soccer being played in England that isn't the Premier League, right and just to do a thing as Vermonters, for Vermonters. That's the biggest thing."
Additionally, George is looking to build an environment where the top players and coaches in Vermont can all come together. With players being used to traveling all over the state to play with top talent, George believes the squad will be able to handle the long travel days that will come playing in the New England division.
"The thing about it is that we're so used to having to make long rides to go play good soccer," he said. "We're still working out the exact logistics of what it looks like but we'll go down and we'll eat together, we'll do community building. Eating meals together as a team, that's super important. Right now, I don't know exactly what that's going to look like, but we are going to take the time to provide those experiences, to spend that time together, because that's where all the real magic happens. You may remember if you won that game or you lost that game, but what people are going to remember is those long bus rides."
He also hopes that Vermont Clover can work with Vermont Green FC to further elevate the soccer ecosystem in the state.
The Vermont Clover founder compared the relationship between the two clubs as similar to two Spanish clubs. While Vermont Green FC is the FC Barcelona of the Green Mountain state (albeit with fewer financial levers), George wants to build the Vermont version of Athletic Bilbao, a club known for its selection of only rostering players born in the Basque region or who have been developed in the region.
"Green is Barcelona, it's really important to the Catalan people, because it represents Catalonia out to the world, and it's their best foot forward," George said. "There are Catalan players in there but it's not explicitly like we have to have Catalan players. They want to find the absolute best players they can possibly get, and they want to win everything at the top level. Bilbao it's not like that. Maybe the casual fan doesn't know about them, but the people there care really, really deeply about them."
Ahead of the 2026 season, the club is still figuring out where it will play its games. George noted that there are limited options and a lot of locations are already booked out by other squads. Additionally, the club is looking for a pitch that will be able to host 500-1,000 fans.
"People like the Green Mountain Bhoys, their junkies," George said, "They're gonna want to come watch soccer wherever it happens, provided the price is right and they're going to bring great atmosphere as long as the product on the field is really good. I think that the atmosphere is going to follow once the word gets out. Part of the reason that the atmosphere is so awesome at Vermont Green is because they're so good and because they win things, and because it's exciting to watch those games. If they weren't good, if they were getting beat all the time, there wouldn't be nearly as many people there, and the atmosphere wouldn't be nearly as much fun."
But George is mainly focused on building a talented squad that will compete in 2026. He added that a club website and a schedule release are on the horizon.
"The biggest thing that we're focused on is getting a great team on the field," he said. "Great players that are either native Vermonters or based here in Vermont. We think one of the things that's going to set us apart is that we're not doing things like a lot of the UPSL teams are doing where we just have open tryouts, we're not going to do that because we're not going to ask players to come in and pay just to try out for the team. We want it to be a full scope experience for everybody and we think that we can get a great team on the field and create that great experience for all of the players."
