The Kickers have played every season since 1993, longer than any other professional soccer club in the country. Three times they've chosen to drop a division, and each time titles followed.1,5
Every season, by division
- A season
- A league, playoff or cup title
- 1995: down to the fourthAfter a poor 1994, the club joined the new USISL Premier League. It won that league and the U.S. Open Cup in the same summer.1
- 2006: down to the thirdAfter losing the 2005 second-division final to Seattle, the owners moved the team down, citing possible financial problems if it stayed. Titles followed in 2006 and 2009.1
- 2019: down to the thirdAfter two losing seasons in the USL Championship, Richmond became a founding member of USL League One.1,5
The 1995 double
Richmond's first game was a 1–0 win over the Columbia Spirit on May 8, 1993, at the University of Richmond.1 Two years later, in the fourth tier, the coach was Dennis Viollet, who had survived the 1958 Munich air disaster and scored 179 goals for Manchester United. His players were mostly technically amateur and came from top college programs, many from Bruce Arena's University of Virginia.3
That summer they beat the Cocoa Expos for the USISL Premier League title and kept going in the Open Cup. Rob Ukrop, a Richmond native from Davidson College, had his cheekbone broken against the professional Atlanta Ruckus and missed about ten days.3
| Round | Opponent | Score | Crowd |
|---|---|---|---|
| First round | Maryland Spartans | 5–2, replayed after a protest | 200 |
| Replay | Maryland Spartans | 6–1 | – |
| Quarterfinal | Atlanta Ruckus | 2–1 | 2,083 |
| Semifinal | Chicago Stingers | 4–3 | 4,667 |
| Final, El Paso | El Paso Patriots | 1–1, won 4–2 on penalties | 7,378 |
The final was on August 27 in El Paso, in heat above 90 degrees. Ukrop scored after Leigh Cowlishaw set him up, and Gabino Amparán equalized late, with Richmond down to ten men after Kevin Scott was sent off. Goalkeeper Jeff Causey saved two penalties in the shootout, and Michael Brady scored the winner.2,3 Major League Soccer started the next year, and most of the starting eleven went on to play in it.3
Nine seasons in the second tier
Richmond spent 1997 to 2005 in the second division and won its regular season in 2001. Cowlishaw, an English-born winger who played 152 games for the club, became head coach in 2000 and stayed for 19 seasons.1,3 Red and white became the club's colors in 2001. The team had started out in green and blue.1
Ukrop came home from the New England Revolution midway through 1996 and finished his career in Richmond. The club retired his number 6 in September 2005, the year it lost the second-division final to the Seattle Sounders.1
Beating MLS teams
Back in the third division, Richmond won the regular season and playoffs in 2006, the regular season in 2007 and the playoffs again in 2009. In 2007 they beat the LA Galaxy 1–0 in the Open Cup.1
The 2011 cup run went further. Richmond won 2–1 at Columbus and 2–0 at Sporting Kansas City, then played the Chicago Fire in the semifinal on August 30 without David Bulow, the tournament's top scorer, who was suspended for yellow cards. Chicago won 2–1 in front of 8,909, an Open Cup record at Toyota Park. Since MLS began, only one other professional third-division team had reached the semifinals.1,4
From 2013 to 2018 Richmond was D.C. United's affiliate, and in 2013 it won the USL Pro regular season.1
Owned by a former player
In 2016 the club signed a 40-year lease on City Stadium, its home since 1995, and agreed to $20 million in upgrades.1,5 The Richmond Kickers youth club had been the majority owner. In early 2019, 22 Holdings, six partners chaired by Ukrop, bought control, and the youth club kept a minority stake. The club president called it “a turnaround.”5
Richmond finished first in USL League One's 2022 regular season, and crowds rose to almost 4,800 a game in 2023.1 On June 15, 2026, the club parted ways with coach Darren Sawatzky, and former player Brian Ownby took over on an interim basis.1
| Year | Finish | W–D–L | Playoffs | Top scorer | Avg. crowd |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 5th | 11–7–10 | First round | Emiliano Terzaghi, 18 | 2,075 |
| 2022 | 1st | 14–9–7 | First round | Emiliano Terzaghi, 17 | 3,551 |
| 2023 | 11th | 6–11–15 | Did not qualify | Emiliano Terzaghi, 12 | 4,786 |
| 2024 | 8th | 6–6–10 | Quarterfinal | Chandler O'Dwyer, 7 | 4,515 |
| 2025 | 13th | 8–5–17 | Did not qualify | Darwin Espinal, 9 | 4,369 |
- 1993Bobby Lennon
- 1994John Kerr Sr.
- 1995–96Dennis Viollet
- 1997Frank Kohlenstein
- 1998–99Colin Clarke
- 2000–18Leigh Cowlishaw
- 2018–19David Bulow
- 2019–26Darren Sawatzky
- 2026Brian Ownby, interim
Sources
- “Richmond Kickers.” Wikipedia.
- “1995 U.S. Open Cup.” Wikipedia.
- Fontela, Jonah. “Open Cup Rewind: 1995 Richmond Kickers Catch ‘Lightning in a Bottle’.” U.S. Soccer.
- Hakala, Josh. “Chicago Fire end Richmond Kickers’ Cinderella run.” The Cup, August 31, 2011.
- Cooksey, Jack. “The Long Game.” Richmond Magazine, August 5, 2019.