Underdog Stories / Football history

How Did Detroit City FC's Supporters Rebuild Keyworth Stadium?

Detroit City FC history, supporters and Keyworth Stadium: how five neighbors, 527 investors and a great deal of smoke built a club the hard way.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · August 10, 2026

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The first piece of equipment Detroit City FC bought for its field was a used riding mower, found online. Nobody had a grounds crew. Relatives took tickets and chased balls, and because no company would sponsor the whole kit, the owners sold sponsorships player by player. That was 2012.

The short answer to the Detroit City FC history question is a reversal. Five Detroit residents started an amateur team, supporters filled the stands, and in 2015 hundreds of those supporters put up money to rebuild Keyworth Stadium. The club paid them back early, then sold fans a slice of itself in 2020.

Why We Love This Club, hosted by Chris Horwedel, tells it in the episode "The Club Its Supporters Built Twice." Horwedel's framing is that most clubs prove themselves and then build a home. Detroit City did it the other way round. Here is how that played out, including a few places where the episode and the record disagree.

How did Detroit City FC start?

Five local residents founded the club in 2012. Horwedel names Sean Mann, Alex Wright, Todd Kropp and David Dwyhee. They knew each other from a neighborhood rec league. Their goals were civic: give central Detroit some soccer, represent the city well, and build community.

The money was small. They each chipped in $2,200 to buy their way into the fourth-tier National Premier Soccer League (NPSL). More than 1,000 people came to the first home match at Cass Tech High School in May 2012, a 1-1 draw with AFC Cleveland, says the episode. Cass Tech held 2,500, and it filled up anyway. The club's Cass Tech record was 3,884, set on July 11, 2015.

Rivalries came early, and the supporters made them. The Rust Belt Derby was created and sponsored by the supporter groups of the three clubs: Detroit, FC Buffalo and AFC Cleveland. The name took a word outsiders used as an insult and made it a trophy. Cleveland won the first one in 2012. After that, Detroit won four in a row. In 2016 the NPSL split the three clubs into different conferences. The derby survived as a home-and-home friendly between Detroit and Buffalo, which says something about who cared most.

Detroit City FC history: how did supporters save Keyworth Stadium?

By 2015 the club had outgrown Cass Tech, and it wanted Keyworth. Keyworth opened on October 15, 1936, with Franklin Roosevelt speaking, and was Michigan's first Works Progress Administration project. Hamtramck Public Schools owns it. By the time Detroit City came calling it was in rough shape. One side of the bleachers was condemned.

The club pitched an investment plan at the Fowling Warehouse in Hamtramck on October 29, 2015. Investors could start at $250. The episode says 527 verified investors pledged $741,250 over 109 days, and that supporters also turned up to paint and clean. Investors were to be repaid with interest from the team's revenue.

A caution on the numbers. The $741,250 and 527 figures come from the club's own announcement. The Detroit News later reported $725,500 from 499 investors. I can't tell you which count is the final one. Both are in print.

Then comes a slip in the episode. Horwedel gives the first Keyworth match as May 20, 2026. It was 2016. The home opener drew 7,410, an NPSL regular-season attendance record. The game was a 1-1 draw with AFC Ann Arbor. That is nearly double the Cass Tech record, in one night. The 2016 average was 5,255, up 48 percent on 2015.

Repayment came early. The club had projected six years and finished in four. The Detroit News reported the return at over 13 percent a year. Horwedel says that matters because it showed the club could raise real capital without a rich patron. I agree. Sentiment is cheap, and this was a loan that got repaid.

What happens at a Northern Guard march?

Before home games, supporters gather and march to the ground behind drums. Horwedel puts the start on Joshua Campau Avenue. Another account has the walk setting off about an hour before kickoff from the Fowling Warehouse, with drumming, chanting and singing through Hamtramck's streets. Inside, the Northern Guard fills one stand with flags and smoke and sings through weather, bad refereeing and dull scorelines.

The Northern Guard was there before the club was professional. As Horwedel tells it, they showed up with drums and smoke at a lower-league field and did not apologize for it.

“Most clubs prove they're successful and then construct a home. Detroit City Supporters rebuilt a home because they wanted the club to become possible.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

The politics are on view too. The group is described as anti-racist, anti-fascist and inclusive. The episode says the club wore a uniform supporting LGBTQ inclusion in 2014 and auctioned the shirts for the Ruth Ellis Center. It also admits the obvious: several thousand people do not share one politics. Horwedel says the club and independent supporters have argued over language, conduct and who controls the club. He doesn't read those fights as the community idea failing. He reads them as people caring enough to fight. That sounds right to me. Quiet clubs don't get arguments.

Is Detroit City FC owned by its fans?

Partly. In 2020 the men's team turned professional in the NISA, and the pandemic emptied Keyworth. Mann said the club had a nearly $2 million operating budget and possible revenue shortfalls of up to 80-90 percent. So the club offered 10 percent of itself to the public. Units started at $125, and season-ticket holders could convert their tickets into equity. Iggy Pop led the campaign as its lead investor.

The episode says about 2,700 people invested $1.4 million. The 2,700 figure holds up, since The Detroit News reported 2,700 fans bought shares. I couldn't confirm the dollar total. The club's launch cap was $1.2 million.

Horwedel is blunt about control. The original leadership keeps it, and thousands of supporters hold a minority stake. A Board of Managers stays in charge through Class A membership. That is more than printing "community" on a scarf, and less than a Green Bay Packers-style fan club. Both statements are true.

The club then moved up. It joined the USL Championship for 2022. Horwedel notes America has no automatic promotion between professional divisions, so Detroit did not win its way up. It had to build enough crowd and credibility that a bigger league let it in.

What did the US Open Cup wins over Columbus and Houston mean?

The Open Cup mixes amateur and professional clubs, and in 2022 it gave Keyworth its biggest night. Gyasi Zardes put Columbus ahead from the spot in the 7th minute. Maxi Rodriguez then scored twice, a header in the 64th minute and the winning penalty in the 86th. Final score 2-1, on April 19, 2022. The crowd was 6,121. Per the episode, supporters poured onto the pitch through smoke. It was the first time Detroit had played an MLS team.

Two years later Detroit beat the defending champions, Houston Dynamo. It took some doing. Detroit came from 2-0 and 3-2 down, and the game finished 3-3. Then goalkeeper Carlos Saldaña saved a penalty and scored the winner in an 11-round shootout, 10-9. It was Detroit's first trip to the Round of 16.

Horwedel argues that the cup ignores status for one night and that no budget can quiet Keyworth. That fits Columbus. Houston was in Houston, though. One of the two famous upsets was a road win. I like it more for that.

Will the new stadium cost Detroit City FC its character?

Horwedel names the problem plainly. Keyworth is loved and cramped. Its capacity caps revenue. It is in Hamtramck, while the club has always seen itself as Detroit's. The answer is AlumniFi Field, a 15,000-seat ground on the former Southwest Detroit Hospital site, between Corktown and Mexicantown. Ground was broken on July 15, 2026.

The episode garbles two details. It gives the name as "IlluminaFi" and the opening as 2018. The name is AlumniFi, and the opening was pushed from 2027 to spring 2028. That means more Keyworth seasons, which squares with Horwedel saying the club stays through 2027.

The stadium is a $153 million project, and Michigan's only privately owned major sports stadium. The city's community benefits deal includes 3,000 free tickets for neighbors each year. The hospital opened in 1973 as Detroit's first to accredit Black doctors and nurses, and the club says it will mark that history on the site. Supporters have already put down deposits on nearly 6,000 seats. At the groundbreaking, Mann said a neighbor had told him "It's time to have good memories at this site".

Will the Northern Guard fill a stand twice the size? Nobody knows. Horwedel's worry is that Keyworth was never designed as a sports product, so it is hard to copy: beside a high school and a railroad, shoved into a city block. I share it. A club can plan a stadium. It can't plan that.

The episode doesn't say what became of the used riding mower.