Canadian Soccer team – 1888, photo from the Les Jones collection
Toronto. Collectors of sports photos should consider soccer photos like the one at left of our 1888 team that wowed fans by beating the British team. Member (and past president, author, photographer, collector etc.) Les Jones wrote a book review titled, “Soccer – Canada’s Game”, illustrated with a photo from his collection.
The review begins, “So what has soccer got to do with the PHSC? Well, a new book Keeping Score – The Encyclopaedia of Canadian Soccer has been published with the help of several PHSC members. It features two never before published photographs: a 111 year old photo [in 1999] of the very first soccer teams to participate in an overseas international game, and a picture of the Canadian team from Galt, Ontario who won the Olympic soccer GOLD medal in 1904!
“Soccer may not have the glamour of football or hockey but organised soccer in Canada may very well predate those other national pastimes. More people play soccer in Canada than any other sport… so who says Canada has no soccer tradition.
“To explain the claim that Canada was the very first country in the world to undertake an overseas soccer tour we would point out that apart from low-key visits by lacrosse teams, overseas tours by any Canadian sports teams were unknown until 1888. That was when a motley crew of amateur enthusiasts with names like: “Zip-Zip” Gibson, “Gravestone Bill” Mustard, “Silent City Dave” Forsyth and a right back named “Killer”, sailed off to the motherland of soccer to take the sporting world by storm.” …
Members read all of the above review in the issue 25-5 pdf file on the free members-only DVD/memory stick. See above and at right to join. Membership questions can be emailed to our membership secretary at member@phsc.ca.
