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History of Canadian Soccer
by Colin Jose
ALBERTA |
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Canada
Provinces |
Alberta: The Early Years A booklet celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the Caledonia Football and Athletic Club of Calgary contains the following. “On a spring day in April 1904, a band of exiled Scots got together for a “shoot in” on a football pitch in the 500 block on the south side of Fourteenth Avenue. All were in street clothes except one – Billy Stevenson – who was stripped in his Queens Park colours. Another Queens Park man, the late Dr. George Ings, witnessed the proceedings and it didn’t take him long to mix with his fellow countrymen. Then and there the fellows decided to form a football club – its name to be Callies Football Club of Calgary, the colours to be the black and white of Queens Park.” The club was officially organized on April 26, 1904, but soccer had been played in Alberta long before that. The first game the Callies played was a friendly against a team called the “Excelciors, with the first game the club played in the Calgary League taking place on May 17th, 1904.” Two years later on exactly the same day, May 17, the first attempt to form a provincial governing body for soccer in Alberta happened in Red Deer. The Red Deer News of May 22, 1906, reports as follows. “At the meeting held yesterday in the Alexandra Hall to consider the forming of a Provincial Football League, the following representatives were present. J.A. Fairley, Innisfail; B.F. Kause, Red Deer; W.F. Kennedy, Red Deer; P. Howell, Red Deer; N.R. Walker, Strathcona; J.A. Jackson, Ponoka; P.R. Ramsey, Innisfail.” The new Alberta Football League was duly created with J.A. Fairley installed as president and J.A. Jackson of Ponoka as secretary- treasurer. Yet over one year later, on Tuesday, June 11, 1907, the Edmonton Journal reports at some length of a provincial association being formed in High River, to be known as the Alberta Provincial Association Football Union. So it would seem that to start with, Alberta had two provincial associations, one in the north and one in the south. But it would seem that two years later, on April 19, 1909, the two groups got together and merged to form the first truly province-wide governing body. Once again the meeting was held in Red Deer between representatives from the Alberta Amateur Football Association and the Central Alberta Football League as reported in the Edmonton Bulletin on April 20. On May 1, 1909, the same newspaper reports that the new provincial football league “is now an accomplished fact.” J.W. Ward of Edmonton was elected president with J.A. Fairley of Innisfail, Dr. J.A. Ings of Calgary and Mr. Schofield of Pincher Creek as vice-presidents. H. Ballantyne of Calgary was the secretary-treasurer. However, before all this transpired, the Calgary Caledonians had won the People Shield, the unofficial championship in Canada. Playing in the Calgary League composed of teams called Bankers, Hillhurst, Western Canada College, City and Labourers Union, the Callies played 16 games, of which 14 were won and 2 drawn. The Callies won the trophy by beating Toronto Thistles and Winnipeg Britannia. The winning team was Jock Ross – Andy Morgan, Donald MacKechnie – Arthur Park, Sandy Strang, James Petrie – Tom Stewart, Cruickshank, Thomson, McLean, and Carr. The Callies repeated their feat in 1908 and 1909, thus becoming Canada’s first soccer dynasty. In August of 1907, Mr and Mrs A. Bennett of Calgary presented a Shield to be awarded to the champion team of Alberta. It was first competed for in 1908 and won by, who else but the Calgary Caledonians. The Callies went on to win it again in 1909, 1910, 1911 and 1912, and then not again until 1923. The Shield continued to be awarded until 1929 when it was replaced by a trophy called the Campbell Cup donated by Robert Campbell, president of the Scottish Football Association.© 2007 by Colin Jose ... Continue to Alberta: The Early Years (page 2) Previous [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] Next
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