Prince Albert Historical Society
The FIFA World Cup has come to a conclusion. Whether you call the beautiful game football, soccer (or, as in our household with its Germanic links, futbol) matters not. The Canadian men’s team had more success this year than ever before, and soccer in Canada appears to be on the ascendant. Names like Messi, Mbappe, Harry Kane, and Erling Haaland have become better known in Canadian households than the leading politicians of the nations they represented.
Soccer (I will refer to it as that for clarity) has, from the early years of Prince Albert’s history, been a warm weather sport. I expect one of the reasons for the city’s soccer success in the early years was the fact that so many of our early settlers had come from the United Kingdom, a bastion of soccer play. And now, many of our more recent immigrants have come from countries where British influence resulted in soccer becoming a popular sport.
Looking at our sporting history, you will find many references to the popularity of soccer. Even John Diefenbaker played soccer, as a member of the 1919 Wakaw football team.
In the first four decades of the 20th century, Prince Albert won the provincial shield in 1910, 1913, 1914, 1925, 1929, and 1933. Competition was interrupted during World War One and did not resume until 1920. The Prince Albert team was also the runner-up to the provincial title in 1922, 1924, and 1934.
The City Reds football (soccer) team from 1925. The Reds defeated Moose Jaw 2-0 in the final to win the 1925 Provincial Shield.
The team from Saskatchewan Penitentiary was so able that they could likely have represented Saskatchewan in national competition except for the warden of the institution demanding that the team’s members stay home and guard the inmates rather than travel to provincial and national soccer competitions.
During those early years, there were two names in particular which stood out amongst our local soccer heroes. Those two men, Norman Sheldon and Jack Byars, have both been inducted into the Saskatchewan Sports Hall of Fame. Norman Sheldon was inducted to that shrine in 1967, while Jack Byars joined him when the Prince Albert Reds Football Club was inducted in 1983. Sheldon also was inducted into the Prince Albert Sports Hall of Fame in 1989. Unfortunately, it would appear that the Prince Albert Reds football club has so far been overlooked by the local Sports Hall of Fame.
Norman Sheldon was born in Scotland, where he learned the game of soccer and had a junior soccer career. He immigrated to Prince Albert in 1906 and settled on a farm in the Royal district just south of the city. In 1912, Sheldon was the only player from Saskatchewan selected to play on a national team for a tour of England. In 1921, he played on a Canadian team against a visiting Scottish team, first on June 28th here in Prince Albert, and later on July 9th in Montreal, Quebec. He was also selected to play for a Canadian team which toured Australia and New Zealand in 1924, but was unable to participate in that trip.
While continuing to play in the summer months with the Prince Albert soccer squad, Sheldon also played for two winters for a team in Vancouver. In each of those years he was selected to the city’s All-Star team.
Norman Sheldon had a remarkable playing career in Canada spanning 23 years, a record as yet unequalled by any other Saskatchewan soccer player.
Norman Sheldon died in 1974, having lived his entire life in Canada in the Royal district.
The first mention which I found of Jack Byars’s soccer prowess was in the June 9th, 1931 edition of the Prince Albert Daily Herald in a story about a soccer match between the City team and the Penitentiary club. Byars, according to the story, “the City’s new find proved himself a footballer from the boots up and played a neat unselfish game in the first session, lack of condition slowing him up at the tail end of the game.”
Little more appeared in the media about Byars until the Prince Albert Reds won the western Canadian championship in Winnipeg, Manitoba in August 1933. After beating Winnipeg Irish, Byars scored the winning tally for the Reds in the second half of the western final of the Dominion Football Association play-offs. The national press reported it as follows: “Prince Albert’s Jack Byars at inside right whipped a sizzler past McKenzie to give the almost beaten City Reds a 1 – 0 win over Calgary and the right to meet Toronto Scottish in the Canadian soccer finals starting here Thursday night.”
Toronto Scottish were the defending national champions, and in the best of three series, the City Reds took them to the third game. In the initial match, the clubs ended tied at two apiece. The second match also ended in a draw at nil/nil. The Reds lost the third game 3 – 0.
With the matches being played in Winnipeg, it was important to keep the local fans abreast of the scores as the games progressed. The Daily Herald reported the most up-to-date information over the telephone when fans called the newspaper’s office. They also posted the scores in the windows of Gus’s Kandyland and the Patricia Café, both on Central Avenue, and they ensured that parade goers attending the Exhibition’s grandstand show were advised of the scores between acts.
Although not victorious, the Reds received a welcome on their return home which must have felt as if they had been champions. But, interestingly enough, although they had been runners-up in the national competition, they still had to play Cutknife in the quarter finals of the provincial championship.
It was in the first game of their total goal competition in which Jack Byars really shone. With ten minutes left to play, the teams were tied at one apiece, Byars having scored the equalizer with a mere twenty-five minutes to play. But in that ten-minute span, Byars scored two goals and a team-mate added another, to give the Reds a 5 – 1 victory. With Byars again scoring a goal, the Reds went on to a 7 – 0 victory in the second game of the total goal series, and won the right to plays Saskatoon Thistles for the northern championship.
Saskatoon won the first game of that series 2 – 1 in Saskatoon, with Byars scoring the only Prince Albert goal. However, in the second game of the series, the Reds appeared to have gotten back to their championship form and beat the Thistles 6 – 3, with Byars scoring the local club’s fifth goal with only three minutes to play.
The Reds eventually went on to defeat the Regina Caps 1 – 0 in the sudden death provincial final.
Once again, in 1934, the Reds went on to the national final after defeating the New Westminster Royals and Winnipeg United in the western finals. Similarly to the previous year, the Canadian final, a best of three series, went to the third game before a decision was reached. Montreal Verdun Park won the first game 4 – 0. The Reds won the second game 4 – 1, and lost the third game 2 – 1. How Jack Byars performed in this series is unknown as no line scores could be found.
Byars was a World War Two veteran of the Canadian army, and long-time residents of Prince Albert will remember him as a successful provincial civil servant, as well as a long serving city alderman (as our councillors were called at the time). He died in May 1985.
fgpayton@sasktel.net
