Meet The Philadelphia Union!

After years and years of talks and speculation, it's finally official. Philadelphia has gotten itself an MLS team (well, that's old news), but they now have a name as was announced on Monday in front of City Hall. They will be the Philadelphia Union and that picture above is the logo. And now for some rather bits of information, while called the Philadelphia Union, their stadium is not in Philadelphia, but rather in Chester, Pennsylvania, a Philly suburb 10-minutes outside city lines in Delaware county along the banks of the Delaware River. And if that was not confusing enough, there is a county in suburban Philly called Chester County. Yeah. But I digress. Back to the staduim, this is an 18,500 seat, soccer-specific stadium that is being built for the Union (and the subsequent women's squad that will be joining that league also in 2010).



And like numerous other Philadelphia teams, the logo, the team name, and the colors also harken back to the colonial and revolutionary period. The secondary logo is on the left and that latin phrase that you see is "jungite aut perite" which translated means "join or die" (definitley won't help Philly's rep at all), and the rattlesnake was a symbol back then of how dangerous disunity could be as it was used in a political cartoon by Ben Franklin As far as the odd color scheme goes, no, the Philadelphia Union did not choose those colors out of jealousy of the Philadelphia Eagles hideous yellow and blue uniforms, it's the main colors that were worn by the continental army in their fight for independence against King Penguin King George III and the British army.

One last bit of information, I really, really dig the name Philadelphia Union (again, I'm a history guy), and while it does not take a historian to figure out where it comes from, not only does it really fit with the history of the city but it also has sort of a team aspect to it. Come on, a team called the "Union" has to, if nothing else, be a solid team with a bunch of team players and no in-fighting. But also be thankful that it was not any of the other available choices, which included AC Philadelphia, SC Philadelphia, and Philadelphia City. Good choice, Philly fans, good choice!

Personally, I'll admit that I hardly watch MLS soccer and international club soccer as well (i.e. English Premiership), although when it comes to international competitions (i.e. World Cup) I become completely enamored with the sport and the game of soccer. Now that Philadelphia has a team, I think that I am actually really pumped about this and I am looking forward to 2010 to see how we fare.

GO UNION!!!

Philly's new MLS team unveils name, logo (Norristown Times Herald)