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The FC Frederick Soccer Club and the Urbana Soccer Association have agreed to merge starting with the fall season, bringing a broader range of coaching to players.

According to David Ward, president of the Urbana Soccer Association, the merger will bring 1,000 soccer players under one umbrella.

Bo Eskay, FC Frederick's president, said the goal of the merger was to spread out the soccer club's coaching staff, so that more children in Frederick County could benefit from its coaching model.

FC Frederick boasts 30 nationally licensed soccer coaches, and Eskay hopes that the players from Urbana Soccer Association will benefit from their coaching.

Both clubs will be known collectively as FC Frederick after they join in the fall, and will maintain training facilities in Frederick, Buckeystown and Urbana.

In a press release from FC Frederick, Urbana soccer coaches said that bringing their association under the larger club's banner would increase the level of high school players.

"The pooling of the resources of these two dynamic groups will result in a quantum leap in player development," said Chuck Nichols, the head coach of the Urbana High girls' varsity soccer team.

FC Frederick is a nonprofit organization with the intent of developing and challenging players of all ages at their highest level, according to the release.

E-mail Christian Brown at chbrown@gazette.net.