Port City NC

When Chad Medcalfe took charge of Port City's first women's side in 2024, he built it almost entirely from players he already knew from the area, at Cape Fear Community College, Ashley High School and the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where his assistant, Jennifer Ludemann, had played before a spell in Finland with HJK Helsinki. There was no roster of imports to draw on. The club simply didn't have one yet.

Port City FC had only existed since February 2022, when Tim Williams, Joey Lipoff, Nick Gunyon and Eion Dockery put together a men's pre-professional side from nothing. Dockery now serves as the club's vice-president and general manager, with Haven Lewis running the women's team day to day.

The Gulls, as Wilmington knows them, play in blue, white, black and orange, with blue the colour the founders point to first, a nod to the coastal city they take their name from. Home games are split between Legion Stadium, where the crowd can run to 6,000 across the main stand and the away end, and the UNCW Soccer Stadium across town.

There is nothing yet in the trophy cabinet, which is less an omission than a fact of age: the women's team took its first WPSL kick-off in 2024, and both sides move up this year, the women into the USL W League, the men into USL League Two.