Philly’s booming soccer scene: Premier League fans hype a different kind of football
“Football’s all about finding some player, some team, or some philosophy that you love and then just never looking back.”
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Being an English Premier League soccer fan in Philly used to be a lonely endeavor when your favorite team and fan club are more than 4,000 miles away. That’s why when Philadelphians find fellow team supporters, these groups become more than just fandom.
“I have met some of my best friends through this group,” said Chris Wirtalla, founder of the Newcastle United supporters club in Philadelphia. “Folks have gone out to concerts with each other, we go over each other’s houses for dinners — some of these folks were actually invited to my wedding.
“The most surprising aspect of it is that there are all these people with different ages and interests. I like to call it a group of misfits because you wouldn’t normally think that these folks would fit together, but there’s a shared passion,” he said.
These dozen or so tight-knit Premier League fan clubs like Wirtalla’s have been growing in Philadelphia since the mid-2000s after soccer’s popularity began to rise with the start of the Premier League and U.S. Major League Soccer in the ‘90s, according to founders of local supporters clubs. For them, to finally see these two worlds colliding — English soccer and Philly sports fandom — will culminate this weekend with the biggest event in their clubs’ existence.
“Those first couple years of the club, we had 10 or 15 people at Tir na nÓg to watch a match,” said Bharat Ramprasad, founding member of the local Chelsea supporters club, Philly Blues. “The growth has been good — we sold 500 tickets for this match in Philly. If you would’ve told me that five years ago, it would’ve sounded outrageous.”
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From July 22 to July 30, six of the top English football clubs — Aston Villa, Brentford, Brighton & Hove Albion, Chelsea, Fulham, and Newcastle United — will face off in a nine-match preseason tournament traveling up and down the East Coast, dubbed the Premier League Summer Series. Philadelphia scored a major win as host of three matches,at Lincoln Financial Field, giving fans the opportunity to see all six teams compete.
Philadelphia’s community of English soccer fans has waited patiently for years for international soccer to take the main stage in the U.S., where soccer is one of the fastest-growing sports (despite Americans playing it for more than a century) and the fourth-most-followed sport, according to market research firm GWI.
“Between the Premier League growing in the U.S. [with events] like the Premier League Fan Fest and Summer Series, plus the World Cup coming to Philly in 2026, I definitely think it’s buzzing right now and only going to continue to grow,” said John Fitzpatrick, South Philly resident and avid fan with the Brighton & Hove Albion football club.
A nonenthusiast might ask: How do all these Philadelphians become fans of a sports team across the pond? According to Shaun Faulstick, a Black Sheep pub bartender who grew up in England cheering on Manchester United, English soccer fans choose their clubs like any Philadelphian would.
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“I see it with Eagles fans around here constantly — you don’t get a choice, you’re born into it. Your parents like a team and you just watch every Sunday with them and live and die by it,” said Faulstick.
And for those not born into a club?
“As Premier League has become more accessible, new people are finding smaller clubs, not wanting to seem like bandwagon jumpers getting into Manchester United and all the big teams late, and I respect that,” Faulstick said. “Football’s all about finding some player, some team, or some philosophy that you love and then just never looking back.”
Take T.J. Fogarty, a Manayunk software developer who helped found the officially recognized Philadelphia Fulham supporters club, Phulham, and whose family lived in London for four years during his childhood. Living a short river walk away from Fulham Stadium and on cheeky advice from his father’s boss (“Don’t be like every other American and support Chelsea”), the family became lifelong Fulham fans.
In 2017, Fitzpatrick founded the Philly Seagulls, a supporters club for the Brighton & Hove Albion football club, after a yearslong devotion to the team that started during a study abroad semester at the English beach city of Brighton. There’s also Kayla Ulsh, a Philly sales executive who fell into her Newcastle United fandom while living there during a job stint in 2019. When she returned to Philly, she joined Wirtalla and friends in leading Newcastle’s Philly supporters club — Toon Army Philadelphia.
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For others, choosing a team requires some creativity, like looking to the “Big Six” teams or scrappy underdogs, being drawn to team colors and kits (uniforms), or finding a team based on their story and character like any true Philly sports fan would.
“The description I read of Newcastle was that they never win, but they love a good beer and that they’re the friendliest people around, and I was like — that’s Philadelphia,” said Wirtalla, referring to ESPN sportswriter Bill Simmons’ article on Premier League teams. “I figured I can get into this — my favorite band, Prefab Sprout, also happens to be from Newcastle.”
No matter what team a Premier League fan chooses to support, there is a home for that fandom in Philly. From the Big Six teams like the Manchester United club at the Black Sheep near Rittenhouse to smaller clubs like Newcastle United at Cavanaugh’s Headhouse in Society Hill, bars throughout the city have shown allegiance to at least one Premier League team or another.
Despite some pubs being associated with specific Premier League teams, every soccer bar is welcome to fans of other teams — just don't expext them to put your team's game on if their club is playing.
- All Premier League teams: The Black Taxi, 📍 745-747 N. 25th St., 📞 215-232-1086
- All Premier League teams: Fadó Irish Pub, 📍 1500 Locust St., 📞 215-893-9700
- Arsenal: Misconduct Tavern, 📍 1511 Locust St., 📞 215-732-5797
- Brighton & Hove Albion: Hilltown Tavern, 📍 795 N. 24th St., 📞 267-519-9580
- Chelsea: Tir na nÓg, 📍 1600 Arch St., 📞 267-514-1700
- Fulham: Jose Pistola's, 📍 263 S. 15th St., 📞 215-545-4101
- Manchester United: The Black Sheep, 📍 247 S. 17th St., 📞 215-545-9473
- Newcastle United and Liverpool: Cavanaugh’s Headhouse, 📍 421 S. 2nd St., 📞 215-928-9307
- Tottenham Hotspur: Founding Fathers, 📍 1612 South St., 📞 267-519-0253
But don’t worry, it’s the City of Brotherly Love — it’s not as contentious as England where someone can get thrown out of the pub for wearing the wrong colors, said Chelsea supporters club founder, Michael Jacob, a.k.a “Jake,” who likes to laugh about an old memory of his friend being turned away (and called a “Yank”) from a Chelsea pub for wearing a red shirt on match day.
According to Faulstick and others, the English and Irish pubs that serve as stewards to the local soccer scene help energize and sustain these supporters clubs. For example, Faulstick will finish a Friday at Black Sheep at 3 a.m. but be right back at the pub as early as 7 a.m. Saturday to to let Man. U fans through the doors. (Though Faulstick wouldn’t consider it much of a sacrifice as he’d be up with them anyway, he says.)
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Neil McKernan, a local folksinger and bar manager at the Black Taxi pub in Fairmount, enjoys the camaraderie of it all and sees the similarities between British soccer fans and Philadelphians.
“I actually think Premier League fans aren’t much different to the American sports fans; it’s sort of the community get-together,” said McKernan, who moved to the U.S. a decade ago from Ireland. “What I find in America is that sports are people’s connection, just like the Irish follow soccer, and the Welsh and the Scottish have that sort of connection to go to the bar and watch soccer, maybe meet somebody, and learn about their life.”
Before the club meetups and Premier League boom in Philly, many watched soccer alone in their apartments or brought along whichever unenthusiastic friend to the pub on match day. Garrett Hughes, a video producer and founder of the local Aston Villa supporters club, remembers the first time he watched the team with a fellow fan — who ended up driving all the way to Philly from the Lehigh Valley to find community.
“It was like the first time ever I could actually just watch a game and turn to a friend and say, ‘This player sucks!’ or ‘Remember when he made that left-footed cross?’ and the other guy actually knew everything I was talking about,” said Hughes. “I never had that experience before so it was really awesome.”
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In 2020 after Aston Villa saved itself from relegation (performing so poorly the team could get demoted from the Premier League), Hughes and friends went “on a tear” lasting into the early morning. It’s a feeling that Philly supporters clubs are hoping to reignite this weekend.
On Saturday and Sunday, all of the Premier League supporters clubs in Philly are gearing up for watch parties at all the major soccer pubs, doing live podcasts, attending blowout parties at Xfinity Live! and hosting friends from Pittsburgh, Denver, and England. Not to mention the absolute mayhem that will be Lincoln Financial Field during the tailgating parties — the moment couldn’t be bigger.
“This weekend we’ll have over 100 Brighton supporters in one place for our pregame event, and then several hundred more that will be at the game. That’ll probably be like the coolest thing for me,” said Fitzpatrick.
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As soccer continues to gain popularity in Philly with the Philadelphia Union reaching the MLS Championship Cup last year and the Premier League Fan Fests and Summer Series having some of its biggest events in Philly, the 2026 World Cup matches in the city are poised to be a watershed moment for soccer fans here, according to local supporters clubs.
“This Summer Series is kind of a chance for people to see that there are soccer fans here,” said Hughes. “I think the World Cup is going to be the chance for people to become soccer fans.”