Request for Information - SK based Canadian Players from the 1920's

Colin Jose is a Historian at The Soccer Hall of Fame in Vaughan, Ontario and he has asked the Saskatchewan Soccer Association (SSA) for help in tracking down a little information on two Saskatchewan based players that represented Canada in 1924.

On October 15 the Canadian national team plays the national team of Australia in London, England. Back in 1924, surprising as it may seem today, the Canadian national team toured Australia. The team sailed from Victoria on April 10 and arrived back in Vancouver on August 23. The team played 26 games Down Under, winning 11, losing 8 with seven ties.

Two players from Saskatchewan were included in the squad. They were Leslie Ford from Regina Thistles and Fred Bowman from Saskatoon Radials, both played a prominent role in the success of the team. Canada played the national team of Australia six times on this tour, and Ford, at centre forward, and Bowman, at outside left, played in all six internationals, making them, I believe, the most capped players from Saskatchewan to have played for Canada. Of the 26 games played on this tour, Bowman played in at least 19 of them, and Ford played in at least 16. In addition Ford, with nine goals was the teams leading scorer.

Yet we know little or nothing about these two men. What we do know is that Ford came to Regina, where he was a civic employee, from England in 1921, after serving in the British Merchant Navy in World War One. Bowman is seems might also have come from England and in Saskatoon worked for the street railway. Both seem to have left Saskatchewan before the end of the 1920s. Who were they? What happened to them?

If anyone in either Regina or Saskatoon remembers them can you let us know?

Yours sincerely,

Colin Jose

http://www.thesoccerhalloffame.ca/