Two Beacon Dads Launch Soccer Academy

Total Football hopes to shorten drives for parents

Two Beacon dads have launched a soccer academy that they hope will save parents of young players from making long drives to Westchester, Connecticut and New York City for practice and games.

Glen Wrafter and Derek Limbert, along with John Riordan, are hosting tryouts through May at Sarah Taylor Park in Fishkill for their Total Football Hudson Valley, which will compete in the Elite Development Program North Atlantic League. 

The club plans to begin with boys’ and girls’ teams for players born in 2014, 2015 and 2016. They will play home games at a sports complex in Middletown, with most away games within an hour’s drive of Beacon. Tryouts are scheduled for 5:30 to 7 p.m. on Mondays through May 27; see totalfootballhudsonvalley.com. The cost has not been detemined.

Wrafter, a native of Ireland who coached the NY Shamrocks Soccer Club in Queens, left his career in finance last year to pursue soccer full-time. He is the director of coaching. Limbert, the academy director, grew up in Goshen and is an IT specialist at the American Museum of Natural History. Riordan, also a native of Ireland, is director of operations, club secretary for the Shamrocks and director of development for the youth soccer nonprofit America Scores.  

Total Football pays homage to the Dutch national teams of the 1970s and ’80s, whose coaches focused on attacks and tactics. Its orange jerseys pay tribute to the Dutch. 

The Elite Development Program uses a system popular with European leagues: The best team in a division moves up to a more competitive level, and the last-place team shifts down.