Newtown is a town in Oklahoma.
In the 1970s and 1980s, the town had a thriving professional soccer team, but now the team is gone.
In 2014, the new Tulsa Sockers announced they would be playing at a soccer stadium in Newtown.
The team played for Tulsa from 1982 to 1997.
They moved to Oklahoma City in 1998 and have since been playing at the University of Tulsa.
Now, Tulsa Socks head coach Mike Rinaldo has been working to bring the soccer club back to Newtown, and the soccer community in town has responded with a grassroots campaign to save the team.
“The city of Newtown has been great to us, they’ve been supportive,” said owner, Kevin Tatum, who also owns Newtown Brewing Co. in the community.
“They’re great fans, and we’re really happy to have them back.”
The city of North Tulsa has taken steps to support the new team, including offering the club a parking lot for the first time, which is now filled with the fans’ vehicles.
The goal of the project is to make the city a soccer hub, with more than 2,000 people expected to be playing soccer in Newington this season.
Tatum said the goal is to keep the community connected to the soccer team in an urban environment, while keeping the team in Tulsa.
“We want to keep it going,” Tatum explained.
“And the goal of it all is to bring soccer back to North Tulsa.”
Tatum believes that the Sockies’ first game at Newtown will be a big one.
“I think Newtown’s a great soccer town,” he said.
“It has a good soccer community, and I think this is a big day for the city of Tulsa.”
