Pharmaceutical
Soccer Podcast
Nashville's longest-running soccer show.
Independent coverage of Nashville Soccer Club
A show created for supporters.
The story of Pharmaceutical Soccer is, in essence, a tribute to the team we talk about every single week. Nashville Soccer Club began with a group of soccer fans deciding that they wanted to experience the beautiful game in their own city, and to do so, this group of fans created a fan-owned and operated club that eventually ascended to cement a place alongside the elite clubs in our country in Major League Soccer.
Following Nashville’s exciting 2018 season, the first professional campaign in the club’s history, three supporters came together to launch the kind of soccer podcast they felt was missing in this city. Something that took the conversations happening in the stands and the pubs and gave voice to them on a larger platform. Comprised of three prominent voices from within the Nashville soccer community, Pharma Soccer provides insight, honest and at times irreverent, from the stands and from the press box every single week.
Join us at SixOneFive Soccer!
Whether you’ve been a supporter of Nashville SC since day one, or if you just went to your first match at GEODIS Park, SixOneFive Soccer is here to bring you the most comprehensive, insightful, and up-to-date coverage of Nashville’s soccer scene.
SixOneFive Soccer was founded by Ben Wright, Valair Shabilla and Chris Ivey in partnership with the Pharmaceutical Soccer podcast as an independent and reader-supported source for all Nashville soccer news.
What They're Saying about Pharma Soccer
The Pharma Boys
Clay Trainum
Co-host
A proud native of Evansville, Ind., Clay Trainum moved back to the Nashville area in 2017 and has since cemented himself as the city’s unofficial soccer historian. In 2018, Trainum launched the Nashville Soccer Archive, an online repository for anything and everything related to the sport’s history in the city. Among his early projects was the first-ever deep dive into the history of the Nashville Diamonds, the city’s first professional soccer team. His physical archive is now located in the special collections department at the Jean and Alexander Heard Library at Vanderbilt University.
Additionally, Trainum is a former executive board member of the Nashville Soccer Supporters Trust, which used to own a stake in Nashville Soccer Club, and a former vice president for the Roadies, NSC’s first organized supporters group. He was also prominent in the founding of both La Brigada de Oro, NSC’s first Spanish-language supporters group, as well as the Backline umbrella organization that comprises all of NSC’s officially-recognized fan organizations.
Stephen Robinson
Co-host
Few supporters are more recognizable than Stephen Robinson. A Michigan native now based in the Washington, D.C., area, Robinson was one of the first people a visiting fan would see at any Nashville soccer contest. A longtime member of the Roadies, Nashville’s original supporter organization that dates back to the amateur leagues, Robinson spent many years on the board of directors, including multiple presidential terms. Robinson spent many years as a capo, helping organize supporters across many sections in the many different stadiums that the Boys in Gold have called home over the years.
Robinson is the only member of the show who has truly been along for the ride through every league that Nashville FC and then later Nashville SC have played. His experience and expertise played a crucial role in the founding the of the Backline Supporters Collective. He also served alongside Clay Trainum in the executive board for the Nashville Soccer Supporters Trust, an organization with direct ties to the original supporter-owned Nashville FC that at one point owned a small percentage stake in Nashville SC.
Valair Shabilla
Co-host
Originally from Baghdad, Iraq, Valair Shabilla’s Nashville story begins in 2009. One of the only refugees to have ever covered Major League Soccer, Shabilla brings the voice of Nashville’s large immigrant community to the podcast. He’s the Pharmacy’s resident professional as well, as you will often find Shabilla in press conferences and at practices covering Nashville SC for SixOneFive Soccer.
While many Americans found their way to the sport later in life, Shabilla lived and breathed it from a young age in Iraq. After moving to Nashville as a child, he credits the sport with helping him find community in a turbulent period. With this in mind, he founded the soccer charity Kickin’ It 615, which aims to provide children with access to soccer, with no regard for their own economic situation or background. Initially founded under the banner of the Roadies supporters group, Shabilla reformed it as an independent organization that has proven impactful to so many families within the greater Nashville soccer community.
Omari Jackson
Producer
An exceedingly rare Nashville native Omari Jackson joined the Pharma Boys most recently to take over weekly production duties. In accordance with the show’s ethos, he too hails from the Nashville supporters ranks, having attended matches dating back to the amateur days at Vanderbilt. You will often find Jackson among a group of supporters on the edge of Nashville’s supporters end that refers to themselves as the “Croc Block.” Jackson has followed NSC all over the country as they’ve navigated their way through the various leagues on the way to Major League Soccer.
We’d like to congratulate you for scrolling all the way to the bottom of this page and figuring out that there’s a hidden message down here. You know, many people have asked us over the years why this is show called “Pharmaceutical Soccer.” Well, it’s a simple reason and a stupid answer. You see, the hosts of this honorable show are named Clay, Valair, and Stephen. And despite the protestations of one of those three, on a cold winter night in 2019, Clay pointed out the first initials of each of our names in that order becomes “CVS” like the nationwide pharmacy chain. And thus, the name was born. Let’s be very clear here, none of us have anything to do with pharmaceuticals. Hell, only two of us even went to college and even one of those is a sports degree. Either way, we still love receiving podcast pitches from pharmaceutical companies, so please keep sending us those. Anyway, listen to the pod every Tuesday!