What do a boxing coach, a swampy field in St. Albert's west end, and $10,000 worth of chocolate bars have in common? All played a significant role in developing one of the most popular and successful sporting organizations in this city's history.
What do a boxing coach, a swampy field in St. Albert's west end, and $10,000 worth of chocolate bars have in common?
All played a significant role in developing one of the most popular and successful sporting organizations in this city's history.
The St. Albert Soccer Association is celebrating 60 years next weekend with a party to honour the people who have brought it to where it is today and those who continue to build on that momentum.
Association president Kevin Jones said the club decided to do something special to recognize the diamond anniversary, and also to have a grand reopening of the club's fields at Riel Park.
“We want to honour our past with some special events around it,” he said. “It started out doing lots of different activities and has evolved into a soccer club. We're proud of our facility and honouring some of the founders.”
There will be lots going on, including several activities for kids: an obstacle course, bouncy castles, soccer golf and bubble soccer to give players the chance to hop into giant inflatable balls and get out on the pitch.
Several food trucks will be on site, there will be an evening barbecue, and several displays including ones from FC Edmonton, from FIFA relating to the Women's World Cup being held in Canada this summer, and a historical display of the club's past.
There will also be some soccer matches with a ceremonial kickoff to commemorate the grand reopening of the Riel fields after a two-year hiatus.
“We're hoping to have a couple thousand members come down and enjoy the activities,” Jones said, adding one way or the other they won't be deterred by the weather.
“We are soccer players. Rain or shine, we are hardy,” he said.
Significant growth
Jones has been involved with the club for 28 years, nearly half its history, and said he has seen some impressive changes in that time. The most significant among those changes is the huge growth as more kids are choosing soccer as their primary sport.
Even in the last decade, growth has been substantial. He said the oldest precise registration figures he could find show that in 2004 there were 4,165 registrants for all age groups, which might include doubles for players who register for both the indoor and outdoor seasons.
Those numbers have ballooned to 5,760 for the most recent outdoor and indoor seasons, an increase of nearly 40 per cent.
For another perspective on growth numbers, Jones noted there were 187 teams in 2009 and that has grown by 20 per cent to 225 teams this year.
Some of that growth has been fuelled by former players returning to the fold as coaches for their own kids' teams, after coming up through the program themselves.
“It's interesting to see the second generation of players are now parents and are coaching, and they bring that experience into the club and into the volunteer positions,” he said.
Historic timeline display
The origins of the St. Albert Soccer Association are inextricably linked to the origins of countless other sports organizations in this city.
Paula Onderwater is the board secretary who also happens to be a professional archivist with the City of Edmonton, and she's been working on gathering historical information and artifacts from the club to display at the anniversary celebration.
The club got its start in 1955 as a boxing club when coach Len Dawson formed the St. Albert Hercules Sports Association to help develop that sport. A few years later, local soccer enthusiasts joined with the club seeking sponsorship for their team to be able to play in an Edmonton league, doubling the club membership to about 30 athletes.
Softball was added to the fold in 1965, and throughout the years the club became home to a wide variety of sports in the city.
“In the early 1960s, if you showed up to Hercules with a group of kids who wanted to play a sport and you had a coach, they would welcome you into the fold,” Onderwater said. “At one point they had boxing, soccer, football, hockey, judo, and fencing.”
Ultimately the club's evolution narrowed its focus to soccer as other sporting organizations broke off as their own groups.
She said one of the interesting bits of information she has come across in her research, which has included long hours looking through old newspapers, minutes and other documentation, is the process to get the current club house and fields in place.
In the 1980s the area where the Riel fields currently sit was just “grass and swamp,” and the club undertook fundraising efforts in 1983 to build the facility. Nine years of fundraising later, the current facility was built in 1992.
“I've come across one document that says it was $10,000 worth of chocolate bars for a lot of the fundraising,” Onderwater said with a laugh.
She said due to space constraints she won't be able to display everything she has found, but hopes to put together a good display showing the club's evolution from its humble origins to where it is today.
Nonetheless, she said she hopes to continue to gather as much information as possible to fill in some of the blanks that still exist.
“One of the things I'm trying to do is use this as a springboard to gather more information, because we are missing minutes and documents,” Onderwater said. “If there are old board members, old coaches, or people still out there that have stuff in their basements that could highlight more of the history, I would certainly welcome it.”
For more information about the anniversary celebration or to provide additional historical information, contact the St. Albert Soccer Association at 780-458-8973.
