In the winter of 1969 only about one hundred AYSO players could be found scattered across Northern California .  AYSO came to San Carlos in 1974, with just a few teams, under Emmett MacCorkle.  In 1976, the San Carlos Region was chartered under the national organization by Dick Knickerbocker and was recognized to operate within the city boundaries of the City of San Carlos .  

 

With the help of hundreds of volunteers over the years, soccer in San Carlos has continued to grow.  The first few teams had to travel to neighboring cities in order to compete with other teams in AYSO.  Today, we have seven age divisions with five of them having enough teams to compete within our own region.  In 1991, for the first time, San Carlos had over 1,000 children in the program, and currently we have grown to approximately 1,500 kids and 150 teams!  We are the beneficiaries of the effort, skill, know-how, good will and wonderful positive attitudes of many people over the years. 

 

The Knickerbocker-Masters Cup Tournament is intended to celebrate those individuals.  This annual tournament was named after Dick Knickerbocker who served as commissioner for seven years and Bob Masters who was on AYSO’s board for 8 years and was Regional Commissioner from 1986 to 1988.

 

In the spirit of AYSO’s philosophy, the San Carlos AYSO board decided to run a new Knickerbocker-Masters tournament format for the U10 division in the Fall of ‘2008.  Recognizing that in the single elimination format the playing time for half of the teams is limited to just one game, this years’ format includes a round robin stage so that all teams play multiple games.  The goal of the new format is to run a tournament that leaves every child excited about soccer even if they lose the first game. 

Gjalt Huisman

Assistant Chief Coach '2008