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History of Canadian Soccer
by Colin Jose
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Canada
Provinces
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Colin
Jose He is the author of nine books on the history of soccer in North America including two books on the North American Soccer League, NASL: A Complete Record of the North American Soccer League and North American Soccer League Encyclopedia. The others include American Soccer League 1921-1931, The Encyclopedia of American Soccer History (written with Roger Allaway and David Litterer), The United States Tackles the World Cup (with Roger Allaway), The United States and World Cup Soccer Competition, The Story of Soccer in Canada, Keeping Score: The Encyclopedia of Canadian Soccer and On Side: 125 Years of Soccer in Ontario. Unlike sports such as hockey, football, baseball and basketball, very few records were ever kept of soccer in North America, and hardly any books were ever published. But over the years, working with newspaper microfilm, Colin has reconstructed many of the records of the game that had long been considered to be lost. Over time it is hoped that this website will contain many of those records. The author of this website wishes to acknowledge the contribution made in designing the site, and putting it together, by Shauna Arrington. He also wishes to acknowledge the contribution made by Laurel Bishop in her research of the history of the Westminster Royals and for her many hours spent in proofreading the manuscript.
History of Canadian
Soccer Website For the time being, I have concentrated on the period from 1876, when the game arguably has its beginnings in Canada, to the early 1940s, when World War Two seriously interfered with the progression of the sport. In those early years, soccer was always known as “Football.” The Western Football Association, formed in 1880, has nothing to do with the game played today by the Toronto Argonauts or Saskatchewan Roughriders. The various provincial soccer associations of today were almost always known as “Football Associations.” The Ontario Football Association, today’s Ontario Soccer Association, was formed in 1901. The Dominion of Canada Football Association, today’s Canadian Soccer Association, was formed in 1912, and so on. The research for this project was mostly conducted by consulting a large variety of newspapers on microfilm at McMaster University in Hamilton and at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. It is a work in progress, and always will be. This is the personal website of the author and is based on his personal research and is not in any way connected to, or approved by, any soccer organization.
© 2007 by Colin Jose
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Colin Jose has been
researching the history of soccer in both Canada and the United
States for over 40 years, and is currently the historian at The
Soccer Hall of Fame in Vaughan, Ontario and Historian Emeritus at
the National Soccer Hall of Fame in Oneonta, New York. Colin was born in England in the seaport town of Falmouth but moved to Canada
50 years ago.