Rangers 1930 Canadian tour on Youtube

[Martyr]

Thought people here would be interested in this footage.

This was on the Guardian website in the "Classic Youtube" section... http://youtu.be/KeRu6lFjDaM

Have anyone of you history buffs ever seen this before? Don't know who digitized it or who holds the original.

One of the comments gives more details:

Just for the record, the final score was 4-3 to Rangers (2 goals each from Jimmy Fleming and Alan Morton). Match played in Toronto on May 21 1930. This was the first match of a 14-game tour of North America. Rangers won every match, scoring 68 goals and conceding just 20.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Think we had a thread on that on here before. The focus was on what happened to Ulster United's impressive looking soccer specific stadium to a certain extent.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Even in the 30's you can see why soccer couldn''t break through to the mainstream. All wrapped up in exclusive old world ethnic identities as opposed to inclusive geographic canadian identities.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Soccer was around long before that but for whatever reason the "mainstream" decided to look elsewhere for their main spectator sport. That is not the fault of the people who subsequently decided to play it even though they were told by their neighbours that it wasn't a Canadian thing to do.

[CanadianSoccerFan]

Soccer was around long before that but for whatever reason the "mainstream" decided to look elsewhere for their main spectator sport. That is not the fault of the people who subsequently decided to play it even though they were told by their neighbours that it wasn't a Canadian thing to do.

You don't get it. Talk to to any north american soccer historian about it. Ulster United? Toronto Ukranians? Canadian soccer history has resembled a balkanized collection of private old world ethnic social clubs that appeal to small minorities but turn off the majority. Soccer was just as popular as hockey before world war 1 but hockey remained totally inclusive while soccer didn't. The Toronto Maple Leafs were smart enough not to name themselves Ulster United or Toronto Italia to alienate the masses.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Sure it's all the fault of the "ethnics" and had nothing to do with cultural exceptionalism as part of the process of nation building and moving away from a British imperial identity. Cricket was popular at one point as well but was superseded by baseball for much the same reason as soccer's demise amongst the "mainstream" at the hands of Canadian football. The reality is that without clubs with names like Ulster United or Ukrainians there would have been no soccer at all and it was the effort of the "ethnics" to form vibrant soccer leagues often in the face of ridicule and hostility from their "mainstream" neighbours that put the foundation in place for the youth soccer boom of the 90s once the cultural exceptionalism thing finally started to wear off. That contribution to the sport should be honoured and respected.

[argh1]

I'm not sure about ethnicity....in the past.....but I don't like the idea outside of rec or social club activities in the now. Not for high level amateur or pro sports anyways. Cultural dancing, singing stuff ,music, games like hurley, aussie football, ma-jong. Express your heritage away.

Anyways development of sports in Canada is a great discussion though.

All kinds of different games have been played and still played in Canada.

But what I think you're discussing is popular spectator sports not playing sports. Although there are many examples of events being well attended, really the only coast to coast game before the advent of radio and TV...now the internet...was hockey on a consistent basis. Sparking the debates on the place where the game was 1st played. Curling enthusiasts aside.

Most sports teams and leagues were local or regional.

When radio came along and because of our proximity to the States we heard of Babe Ruth, Joe Dimaggio and baseball sparked our interest (yes the game was played here before).

People listened to the games. TV with MLB games of the week,

CFL didn't become an institution until some Calgary fans rode horses through a hotel lobby in Toronto caught by TV cameras.

I'm not sure if ethnics had much to do with the onslaught of US based broadcasting of games that peaked our interest in games and started bringing us out to games.

But really outside of hockey what games consistently bought Canadians to games.

If you're going to blame anyone blame the massive US exposure of broadcasters from the 1920's to the 50's that bombarded us.

Really until just after the 1st World War Canada was more of a collection of regions than a nation and it wasn't until after the 2nd World War that a true sense of nationhood took hold.

Soccer at the time of honest broadcasting (not paying to broadcast) in the developmental stages covered lots of sports but only a few held enough national interest to sell commercials.

We can't deny or change our proximity to the US or the influence that the $ and the sheer size of their market affects upon us.

So that was just a long spout about main stream and ethnicty.

It wasn't main stream or ethnicity that kept soccer from being a spectator sport but during the early stages there was no or little broadcasting and newspapers didn't cover outside their town in Canada. By the time National broadcasting and people could afford radios and TVs..........it was too late.

That 30 or 40 year period before any real national Canadian broadcasting took hold (apologies CBC) shaped so much. Plus our inferiority complex that hangs on that anything American is bigger and better.

[alberta white]

I'm not sure about ethnicity....in the past.....but I don't like the idea outside of rec or social club activities in the now. Not for high level amateur or pro sports anyways. Cultural dancing, singing stuff ,music, games like hurley, aussie football, ma-jong. Express your heritage away...

Aus Kick is an intresting subject in the development of football. It's Codefined rules actually Predate Association football by about 4 years, (ARF-1859 and AF- 1863) Tom Wills, is an intresting character as he esentially established the game in a letter he wrote to "Bell's Life in Victoria and Sporting Chronicle", the for runner of the Autralasin Post. However Wills was a member of Sheffield FC the oldest recorded Football club still in existance, who at that time were playing the game under "sheffield rules" which again predated.

Australian rules is an embodiment of that Nations independent identity. Cricket and Rugby maintained a sporting link with the past. But soccer only hit a resurgence post 1945 when the Europeans arrived. The Australian National Leauge only came into effect in the 1960's

Having live in SA for a while I can actually appreciate the game.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Think Aussie rules is based on the same sporting tradition that Gaelic football grew out of in an Irish context. There's a really good movie about it called The Club that's worth a look. Australia is definitely a good example of how the self-governing dominions of the Empire very much went their own way on spectator sports and how the notion that soccer only failed to make headway in a Canadian context because uppity "ethnics" refused to call their clubs something suitably inclusive is way wide of the mark.

It always appears to me that the decision was made by the powers that be quite early on that soccer wasn't going to be part of the post-imperial Canadian nation building project. From what I understand for decades the vibe was that you were only truly assimilated when you turned your back on soccer and played and watched sports like hockey and baseball instead and in my direct personal experience even as recently as the late 1980s and early 1990s there was no shortage of people who would remind you of this and give you unsolicited advice about it. Personally I always got the impression that what was really being said in code at least some of the time was "we don't want you here" and that bashing soccer was a socially acceptable way to be anti-immigrant so I basically told the tiny minority of idiots that I encountered who were really obnoxious about it to get lost and that I thought they had a hell of a nerve trying to tell me what I should do with my leisure time and stuck to playing soccer for no other reason than because it was something I genuinely enjoyed doing.

There has been a massive sea change on that sort of thing over the last generation as cable TV and the internet have expanded people's horizons making it difficult for the CBC to set the agenda culturally the way it used to and the whole idea of having a national monoculture that everybody is expected to rigidly conform to is almost passé nowadays. Think that's healthy and that people should always be able to make decisions to play and watch sports for no other reason than because they like them. The role of ethnic social clubs within the sport is very much on the wane now because of that cultural sea change so when people continue to have a massive hang up about them and write about it in a manner that bears no correlation to the reality of how these clubs actually operate in practice I tend to strongly suspect that something is still being said in code in a socially acceptable way that can not be overtly articulated.

[alberta white]

^ Yes I agree. A lot of the irish tradition of Caid is very prevelant in Aussie Rules. Its not uncommon for SANFL and the VFL to go looking for players from the GAA. The field also has a lot to do with its development along with the initial intention for the game to be a way of Keeping cricketeers fit during the off season.

All of the above, must be the reason for the existence of Merve "the Swerve' Hughes.

[argh1]

I wonder given the legend of Irish monks coming to NA in the 6th century. Did St Brendan bring hurling to NA and it became lacrosse. Or did they bring lacrosse back to Io Ireland it became hurling?

Not many stick and ball games similar like hurling and lacrosse?

[ted]

...the notion that soccer only failed to make headway in a Canadian context because uppity "ethnics" refused to call their clubs something suitably inclusive is way wide of the mark.

Now that is a ridiculous summation of the argument against "ethnic identities" for professional teams and the historical development of soccer in Canada.

You must see that in the historical development of soccer in Canada there has to be a connection with the domination of the sport by ethnic clubs in the early years and it's stunted development versus the "Canadian" identity of hockey and its dominance in the sporting scene in Canada today. The ethnic clubs should rightly be seen as the historical incubator and preserver of the game in Canada but we can celebrate that heritage without retarding the development of the professional game.

The argument over ethnic identities for professional teams is firmly rooted in the here and now reality of marketing to a wider Canadian audience. You may not believe that casual fans will be alienated by an ethnic identity they feel they cannot share but you cannot argue that it is an unreasonable possibility. I believe that if you cannot make your potential fans feel any sort of tribal connection to your team you will never make them into supporters. We are not just selling the game, we are selling the tribal/brand loyalties that make the game special.

[BringBackTheBlizzard]

Now that is a ridiculous summation of the argument against "ethnic identities" for professional teams and the historical development of soccer in Canada.

You must see that in the historical development of soccer in Canada there has to be a connection with the domination of the sport by ethnic clubs in the early years and it's stunted development versus the "Canadian" identity of hockey...

I have already explained why I think that is an exercise in revisionism because the real issue was the drive for cultural exceptionalism within Canadian society as part of the process of nation building. Cricket and rugby also lost out. It wasn't just soccer. Judging from your last paragraph you probably haven't even bothered to read my posts in this thread. In post #9 I made the point that the influence of ethnic clubs is very much on the wane now due to cultural changes that have taken place over the last generation. How many ethnic clubs are there in MLS, the NASL, PDL and the newly emerging semi-pro leagues in Quebec and Ontario based on what has unfolded over the past 5 years or so? At most two out of thirty from what I can see and they are both prospective entries into L1O, a league which probably is going to draw small crowds of a few hundred at best and gain minimal media coverage regardless of what the teams are called. Why do people still have a hang-up over this issue when the trend is now very much towards teams with a geographical appeal? It's time to move on.

[ted]

...the trend is now very much towards teams with a geographical appeal? It's time to move on.

Amen!