Long Island

Long Island is another of the "ethnic" influenced teams in the America League. For Long Island their strong Italian population (26%) and ownership influenced the identity of their soccer team. The club’s home is in Farmingdale at Bethpage Park and they’ve played there since their founding in 1956. For most of their history they’ve been members of America One until the 90s.Since then, they’ve settled in the America Two league. Their crest takes some strong inspiration from their Italian counterparts where a number of clubs use ovals as their crest shape. LISC is at the top, the Italian flag in the middle and a cross is at the bottom. Of course, some controversy has come from the cross, but ownership has stood strong while some fans have blackened out the cross on the jerseys as a form of silent protest. It sounds like a big deal, but the fan base and owners are supportive of all and each other no matter their creed, and there isn't much of an uproar either way. In fact, the owners actually changed the way they embroidered the cross on the badges to make it easier for the fans to black them out if they wanted. The uniforms have varied greatly in design over the last 10 years with the checkerboard pattern being the only connecting tissue. They've swapped colors a number of times because they typically let the fan base vote on colors and uniform designs. For the upcoming season they are moving forward with an orange and blue scheme but with a unique "exploding checkerboard" pattern.