More than 50 years ago, a soccer team helped pave the way for organized sports in Sechelt. On Aug. 21, the landmark team, the Sechelt Chiefs, took time to catch up.
Having played so long ago, not all of the team is still around. Only four teammates were at the reunion, Frank Dixon, Tom Paul, Herb August and Jim Gray, however, a few more were expected to drop by later.
“I get invited to these celebrations of life, and you have that regret that you haven’t seen the guy, Gray said. “I grew up with these guys.”
Gray said team members not at the reunion include Calvin Craigan, Benny Pierre and Garry Feschuk.
The teammates were reminiscing about an old team photo that Gray’s kids had found, taken in 1971.
Pointing out that the picture was torn and missing about four players, Gray said “So, I had to fill in the blanks,” and laughed, showing how he had photocopied the original picture and drew in the missing teammates.
Gray explained he started teaching in 1970, the same year children in residential schools were moved into the public school system.
“There was no kids’ sports anywhere on the Coast, the only sports happened in the schools, and there was no minor soccer,” Grey said. “The only soccer team were these guys [pointing to his teammates], and they played in the team league in [Vancouver].”
Schools didn’t start implementing sports for a couple of years, until the mid-70’s, so the dedicated soccer team would make the weekly trek to play the sport they loved.
“This was a real, small little community always, always built, soccer-wise,” said Paul.
“We’d go to Vancouver every weekend – and terrorize Chinatown,” Joked Dixon.
“We started right from the bottom up,” said Paul, “We made it up the final 2 spots.”
“Well, we pretty well stayed on the bottom too,” said Gray.
Jordan Copp is the Coast Reporter’s civic and Indigenous affairs reporter. This reporting beat is made possible by the Local Journalism Initiative.
