George Gross, former corporate sports editor for The Sun newspapers in Canada. once described Colin Jose as the most unsung hero in the Canadian soccer community despite his awards and recognition from both sides of the border.. Colin Jose was a soccer historian, writer and journalist who is considered to have written from a historical perspective more about the game in Canada and the United States than anyone else.
Colin passed away last month, on Saturday, September 14th at the age of 88. Born in England, a seaside community on the south coast, he emigrated to Canada in 1957, living in Hamilton. He returned to the UK, came back to Hamilton in 1964 and in 2006 settled in London, Ontario.
In his book Onside -125 years of soccer in Ontario, Colin Jose describes the forerunner leagues of the Canadian Soccer League and while looking back over the decades of the CSL and the National Soccer League (which was the main forerunner league of the CSL) he emphasizes it was born out of turmoil in the tumultuous years of the 1920s. He further writes that the league as having stood the test of time when other leagues have come and gone in Canada, an observation that holds good to this day while the CSL continues to play as a private semi-professional league without parallel in Canadian sports.
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Colin Jose was a soccer man to the core and became interested in Canada’s early days in soccer despite the flourishing other sports such as ice hockey and baseball in North America. He researched, chronicled and cataloged, reported and authored several books on the game in Canada and the United States. His articles in World Soccer magazine brought global attention to soccer in North America and his Down Memory Lane columns in The Soccer News were widely read from coast to coast across Canada.
The US National Soccer Hall of Fame Colin Jose Media Award was named in his honour in 2004. He was honoured with the Canada Soccer President’s Award three years later, and the Ontario Soccer President’s Award in 1986 and 2015, and the Soccer Québec Centennial Medal in 2011. He also was honored by the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Hamilton Soccer Hall of Fame in 2016.
Colin was very much a family man, blessed with a friendly, caring personality and never-ending sense of humour which attracted his many friends in and out of the soccer community. He leaves his wife, Karen, whom he married in 1966, and daughters Carla, Teresa, Linda, his son Chris, and was the grandfather of William and Olivia,
A celebration of life will be held from 1 pm to 4pm on Sunday, October 20 at Soccer Hall of Fame Ontario, 4995 Keele St, just north of the 401 at Steeles Ave.
