Sitting in the volunteer-built clubhouse on Industrial Parkway South, current and former club presidents John Aird and Martin Ambrose reminisce about the past 70 years of the Aurora Soccer Club.
Started in 1954 by a group of mainly Dutch immigrants, the Aurora Soccer Club formed as a group of amateurs passionate about the ‘beautiful game.’ Seventy years later, the club maintains that same ethos, run as a non-profit by volunteers.
In recognition of that history, the club is hosting a celebration for its 70th anniversary, featuring speeches from local dignitaries and a friendly match to compete for the Founders’ Cup.
History of the club
The inaugural team was fittingly named the Aurora Firsts and played their home games on Saturday afternoons at the old Town Park.
The team travelled far and wide in its early days, going on several North America and European tours.
Other clubs came and went or merged with Aurora Soccer Club, but it took a few decades for the club to find its permanent home.
Then in the early 1980s, the late mayor John West approached the club with an offer to lease 4.5 acres of land on Industrial Parkway South. The parcel, was a rough meadow without any services, and “was unremarkable at first glance,” according to Ambrose.
But the club took on the project of turning the land into a home, building a soccer field and later a clubhouse on the land, which has been the club’s home since 1987.
Future of the club
Since those early days, the club has become, in Ambrose’s words, a “United Nations of football,” with a wide array of people joining the club.
The club remains volunteer-run and has also become focused now on running teams for increasingly more senior members, offering “a pathway,” to players who want to keep playing the game into their older years.
“Players playing in League 1 Ontario are 18, 19, 20. If players haven’t made the step up to CPL, where do they go from there? The Canadian and the Ontario soccer system stop there, and we’re here to fill that gap,” said Aird.
The club runs competitive and recreational teams and has also added women’s teams.
The club is also looking to pioneer walking football, an offshoot of the more famous 11-a-side version of the sport, which sees competitors play on a smaller field, all at walking pace.
The game can serve as “therapeutic” for some, especially older players.
“Once they get over the stigma of what that looks like, it will take off the same way pickleball has taken off after tennis, and badminton. Just by re-designing the sport a little bit, it makes it more accessible,” said Aird.
The club’s 70th anniversary celebration is being held on Sept. 7 from 1 to 6 p.m. at 510 Industrial Pkwy. S.
