Soccer ball from 1954 championship team returns home to Leslieville school

By ALAN SHACKLETON

A championship soccer ball is back home at Leslieville Junior Public School more than 70 years after members of the school’s team celebrated winning the City of Toronto title back in 1954.

When the Leslie Street (now called Leslieville) Public School Major Junior boys team won the city championship in 1954, they presented the game ball to their teacher and coach Magil (Gil) Darnley. And in October of this year, Darnley came back to the school to present that very ball to the principal for display in one of the trophy cases.

Darnley, now 93, is doing some downsizing and wanted to make sure the soccer ball could be preserved in a place of honour at the Leslie Street school where he taught and coached sports teams from 1953 to early 1956.

“Leslieville was well-known for its athletes in the 1950s,” said Darnley in an interview with Beach Metro Community News at the school when he presented the ball to principal Steve Steers.

Darnley said soccer was one of the most popular elementary school sports there was in Toronto at that time because it did not require much equipment to play and, unlike hockey which had to be played outdoors on natural ice rinks, it was not dependent on the weather.

“In the 1950s it was the biggest sport,” he said of school soccer. “Hockey had no artificial ice rinks we could use so we depended on natural ice at Greenwood and that didn’t always work. Soccer was all year round and you only needed 10 or 11 kids and a ball.”

He said the level of play and skill among many of the Toronto schools was very high when it came to soccer. “It was very competitive in the public schools.”

Also, most football (North American style with helmets, pads and touchdown) couldn’t be played before high school.

In a note to Beach Metro Community News, Darnley also said that while softball was played by school sports teams, there were not many softball diamonds available in the early 1950s. “Few softball diamonds existed for schools and most games played occurred in the cinder-covered school yards, thus the significant focus on soccer.”

Seventy-two years later, Darnley still remembers the 1954 championship soccer team.

“Twenty kids came out and I didn’t want to cut anybody so we had an A and B team. The players never gave up in a game. They were great kids.”

Looking at the names on the ball from 1954 brought back memories for Darnley of those students, many of whom would now be in their 80s themselves as Darnley was in his very early 20s when he coached them.

“Our goalie Graham Smith was great. He only gave up one goal in 24 games,” remembered Darnley.

The members of the 1954 Leslie Street Public School team (including both the A team starters and B team support players) that won the 1954 city championship, at that time named the C.C. Goldring Trophy, were:

John Atley, Marvin Berbeck, Anton Ekes, Frank and Jack Gallagher, Wayne Mackie, Ian Manson, Lewis Martin, David Rae, Graham Smith, Henry Weeks, Ted Wilson, Rob Campbell, Rob Gemmell, Wilfred Langley, Bob Mori, Bill Morris, Jack McRay, Billy Roy, Herb Tanner, and Alan Toguri.

Darnley also coached Leslie Street’s 1955 Major Senior boys soccer team which city finalists, but did not win the championship, that year.

In a note to Beach Metro Community News, Darnley’s family said many of his former students have kept in touch with him over the years and the family recently met for a lunch in Toronto with one of the players from the 1954 soccer team.

Leslieville (Leslie Street) Public School has a long history, first opening as a school for the community in a log cabin in 1864. The school’s first principal was area resident Alexander Muir, who wrote The Maple Leaf Forever.

Principal Steers said he was thrilled to hear from Darnley and happy to have the soccer ball from the 1954 championship team back in the school.

“It’s a good strong connection to the past and present,” said Steers, who added that sports still play an important role for students at Leslieville.

Darnley, who now lives outside Toronto, retired from the Toronto Board of Education as a chief superintendent. He has long and deep connections to the Beach as he grew up in the community and attended Malvern Collegiate as a student.

Darnley’s family first lived on Silver Birch Avenue, then Malvern Avenue and also Swanwick Avenue, and he attended Kimberley Public School before high school.

As well as being a student at Beach schools, Darnley also came back to his home community to serve as a vice-principal at Williamson Road Public School in the early 1960s, and then later as principal of Balmy Beach Public School from 1972 to 1979.