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History of Canadian Soccer
by Colin Jose
BRITISH COLUMBIA |
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Canada
Provinces |
Westminster Royals, 1927–28 Introduction In December of 1950, the Canadian Press conducted a poll of all its sports editors across the country in order to determine the leading players and teams at the half-century mark in all sports. The soccer team chosen “Team of the Half Century” was the Westminster Royals of 1929. In 1979, the British Columbia Sports Hall of Fame inducted the Royals team of 1928–29, noting that it was the “Soccer Team of the First Half Century.” The reasons for the induction of this particular team listed on the BC Sports Hall of Fame website include winning, amongst other trophies, the 1928 Province Cup as well as the 1928 Challenge Trophy for the Canadian championship. However, the Royals team of 1928–29 did not win the 1928 Province Cup, but they did win that played in 1929, and they advanced only as far as the semi-final in the British Columbia section of the 1929 national Challenge Trophy, losing to St. Saviours. In 2005, The Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum (Ontario) chose to induct as a Team of Distinction, the Westminster Royals, 1928, referring to the team that played the 1927–28 season, giving them credit for the 1928 Challenge Cup. The writer feels that the two teams have become confused over the years, and that the record of the 1927–28 Royals championship team seems to have been added to the 1928–29 season. In British Columbia, soccer seasons include part of two calendar years, just as they do in Europe, because on the west coast of Canada, you can, in many years, play outdoors for nine to twelve months. Players are signed for the new season in September of one year and play until the late spring or early summer of the next. The following men played at least one game for the Westminster Royals 1927–28 team during the regular season: Aitkin, George Anderson, Stanley Ball, Jock Campbell, Harry Chapman, Jack Coulter, Austin Delany, Gant, Adam Kerr, Bob McDougall, Les Rimmer, George Russell, Jimmy Smith, Tom Taylor, Tom Trotter, Dave Turner and Roy Williams. The following players were transferred to the Royals for the National Championship: Andy Roots, Aubrey Sanford, Dickie Stobbart and Sandy Strang. The 1927–28 Westminster Royals won the following trophies: Vancouver & District First Division League Championship (Teacher’s Shield), Mainland Cup, Vancouver Exhibition Cup and F.A. Trophy. The following men played at least one game for the Westminster Royals 1928–29 team during the regular season: George Anderson, Joe Berto, Harry Chapman, Jack Coulter, Austin Delany, Andrew Hannah, Hendry, Tom Kennedy, Adam Kerr, Dan Kulai, George Lindsay, Eric Mackay, Bob McDougall, Joe Millburn, Les Rimmer, George Russell, Max Shiles, Stanley, Dickie Stobbart, Sandy Strang, Tom Trotter, Dave Turner and Nels Wilson. The 1928–29 Westminster Royals won the following trophies: Vancouver & District First Division League Championship (Teacher’s Shield), Mainland Cup, Province Cup and O.B. Allan Cup.
After the regular season, the teams in B.C. began playing for the Province and Mainland Cups. In the Province Cup for the championship of B.C., the Royals were surprisingly defeated 3–2 by Woodfibre. However, they went on to win the Mainland Cup on May 28, 1928, by beating St. Saviours 2–0. At that point, qualifying competition for the national championship began, which in those days was a separate competition from the provincial championships right across the country. Before the qualifying rounds began, the Royals strengthened their team, adding goalkeepers Andy Roots from B.C. Sugar Refinery and Aubrey Sanford from Sapperton and defender Sandy Strang from Ladysmith in June, and forward Dickie Stobbart from Nanaimo Davenports in July. The national competition began on June 9 with the Royals beating Ladysmith 5–1. They then defeated Esquimalt on June 16 and St. Saviours on June 23. This put them in the B.C. final against St. Paul’s on July 7, which they won 5–2. The next game was against the Alberta finalists, Edmonton Canadian Legion. In the first game played at Con Jones Park in Vancouver on July 14, 1928, the Royals won 4–0. Two days later, in a wild affair also at Con Jones Park, the Royals won 9–6. Action now moved to Winnipeg, where the Royals met the Manitoba-Saskatchewan champions, Winnipeg Westbrook, at Carruthers Park. Here the Royals won 7–1 on July 23 and 2–0 on July 25, to put them in the final against Montreal C.N.R., the champions of the eastern half of the country. The first game between the two teams was played on July 28 with the Royals winning 3–2 on two goals from Jack Coulter and one from Dave Turner. Andy Roots was in goal. Controversy surrounded the second game as three of the Royals star players: George Russell, Austin Delany and Dickie Stobbart, did not play. The management claimed that injuries kept these three players out. Aubrey Sanford was in goal. The Royals lost 2–1 with Coulter scoring the Royals only goal. The final game was played on August 1, with Russell, Delany and Stobbart back in the lineup. Stanley Ball, the goalkeeper during the regular season, was in goal. The Royals won 6–1 and Coulter scored four times and Stobbart and Kerr once each. After the game, the game ball, duly signed by a number of players and management, was presented to Stanley Ball as the goalkeeper before he left the team to join family in Winnipeg, and then Toronto. That ball now resides in The Soccer Hall of Fame and Museum (Ontario). A crowd of 10 000 welcomed the Royals home to New Westminster on August 6, 1928. A report in The British Columbian describes the scene: “Long before the train was due to arrive, the station platform was thronged, the streets in the vicinity were jammed with cars and the sidewalks were crowded for several blocks. City officials, including Mayor Gray and the aldermen, representatives of the various public bodies and the executive of the team, the fire department and the band of the New Westminster branch of the Army and Navy Veterans’ Association, all were present to show public recognition of the best football eleven in Canada, which has brought fame to the Royal City … After the victors had managed to break through the huge crowd of admirers at the station, they were driven up Columbia street in a huge parade of automobiles to Albert Crescent … To the noise of the horns of scores of automobiles, the sirens of the fire department vehicles and the cheers of thousands, the procession slowly made its way to the Crescent.” A civic welcome followed, and the next evening, the team was honoured with a banquet at the Russell Hotel in the Royal City.
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