Pan Hellenic United FC
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Pan Hellenic United Football Club (Pan Hellenic United, United, or PHUFC) also known as Panelliniki Athlitiki Enosis (Πανελληνική Αθλητική Ένωσις or PAE/ΠΑΕ) is a Chicago, Illinois based Greek leisure football club.
| Pan Hellenic United FC | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Full name | Pan Hellenic United Football Club | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Nickname(s) | Blues/ United/ PHU Fighters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Founded | 2006 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Ground | Douglas Park, Chicago, Illinois |
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| League | Players Sports League | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 2007 | Class A Leisure | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The club was formed in February 2006 by a group of Greek College and High School students. Their aim was to create a leisure sports club that was independent of already established Greek social and sports institutions, including the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago's GOYA youth programs and the Hellenic College Campus Organizations.
In the Spring of 2006, the steering committee of the team decided to hold three trial seasons before officially establishing the club. The first trial season was the Spring 2006 season. The club performed well against overwhelming odds on many occasions, but despite it's efforts, its first season was a losing season. Even so, players and supporters were glad the founders had made the effort to provide a Hellenic team for Greek youth to play soccer.
The Spring 2007 season begins in March. It is the second trial season for the club.
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[edit] Hellenic Youth Trend in Chicago
Pan Hellenic United FC follows a Hellenic youth trend in the Greater Chicago Metropolitan Region. In the last eight years, since 1999, Hellenic youth organizations have sprouted across the city, mainly located on college campuses. The University of Illinois at Chicago's Hellenic Students Association (HSA) was the first of the major independent Hellenic youth organizations on a Chicago university campus. It was soon followed by groups at DePaul, Loyola, and Northwestern. The University of Chicago Hellenic Student Association already existed, though it was/ is small in comparison.
Pan Hellenic United's debut in the Spring of 2006 was met with much enthusiasm from the first members of the Club. The excitement was based on the fact that once Greeks exited the GOYA youth programs of the Metropolis, there was effectively no vehicle for Greek youths heading to College to remain together in the sports they enjoyed. United provided this common vehicle, if only for an initial small group of players in its trial seasons. Nevertheless, during its first trial season the team's existence spread rapidly through word of mouth among Hellenic youth in the City.
[edit] Pan Hellenic
The Football Club bears a similar name to a Chicago area umbrella college youth organization known as the Midwest Pan Hellenic Youth Council. The Midwest Pan Hellenic Youth Council is the combination and collaboration of all the Chicago area Hellenic Student Associations. This group coordinates Chicago area social youth groups and hosts the Pan Hellenic Youth Ball, which includes non-college campus youth Hellenic societies.
Pan Hellenic United FC is independent of this organization.
Also as a sports club for Hellenes, it is not a fraternity or sorority affiliated organization.
[edit] Team Merger, Formation, and Naming
Pan Hellenic United FC was formed in February 2006 through the merger of two teams, the St. John the Forerunner Paintball Club and the southside soccer team Hellas Chicago FC-- (not to be confused with the Schaumburg, Illinois based team Hellas SC)-- which was named after the likes of Hellas Verona FC in Italy's Serie B Championship.
SJF Paintball (2003) and Hellas Chicago FC (2004) were two independent clubs founded at the St. John the Forerunner parish in Willow Springs, Illinois. One was a paintball club that played for leisure in Joliet, Illinois at the facilities of Challenge Park. The latter was a soccer club, formed to play leisure soccer, which only lasted one season. Neither team had any formal tie to the parish, with exception to the name used by the paintball team.
The two teams were folded into one sports club which was renamed Pan Hellenic United FC, in order to reflect the geographic diversity of the players that participated in the team's first trial season. Many players were from Crete, Macedonia, Peloponessus, the Islands, and other places from Greece.
In January/February 2007 talk began on renaming the club by dropping the "Pan" from the team name. The renaming would subsequently label the team "Hellenic United FC". So far, no such change has occurred.
[edit] External Links and E-mail
E-mail: panhellenic.united@gmail.com
