Birmingham Legion FC

Birmingham Legion FC is an American professional soccer club based in Birmingham, Alabama, that competes in the USL Championship, the second division of American soccer. The team was established in August 2013 and played under the name Birmingham Hammers until 2018 and began their first professional season as Legion FC on March 10, 2019.

History

On August 9, 2017, the United Soccer League (now known as USL Championship), the Division II sanctioned league by the United States Soccer Federation, granted a team for Birmingham to begin play in the 2019 season. On January 17, 2018, the team name was revealed as Birmingham Legion FC, a reference to the historic Legion Field that opened in 1927. However, the team instead played at BBVA Field, the home of the UAB Blazers soccer program.

Oak Mountain High School graduate and Real Monarchs' star forward Chandler Hoffman signed on as the team's first player in July 2018. In August the team announced that Tom Soehn would be the first head coach of Birmingham Legion FC.

Their first professional game resulted in a 2–0 defeat against Bethlehem Steel FC on March 10, 2019.

Stadium

Legion FC played its home matches at Protective Stadium, which also serves as the Blazers' home field, which began in the 2021-22 season.

On March 15, 2021, Legion FC was forced to move its scheduled match against rival Memphis 901 to historic Legion Field because of unplayable pitch conditions at PNC Field, caused by heavy rains in the previous days. The match, dubbed "Legion at Legion," drew a club-record crowd of 10,177, which the club said was also the largest crowd ever to attend a professional soccer match in Alabama. (Legion Field's largest soccer crowd ever was a 1996 Summer Olympics match between the United States and Argentina, which also set the stadium's all-time attendance record with 83,810 fans.