Hans Niedermayer lived a long and productive life but the legacy he left Prince George will live on as long as soccer is played.
Mr. Soccer died on April 1 at the age of 90. Friends, family and soccer fans will gather this afternoon for a memorial service at
St. Michael's. They will remember a man born and raised in Austria who came to Prince George as a 30-year-old in 1956 and quickly set about transforming his adopted hometown.
As sports reporter Ted Clarke explained in his touching tribute to Niedermayer's accomplishments in Tuesday's Citizen, soccer wasn't a sport in Prince George in the 1950s, it was warfare. Coming together with a ball on a field was simply an opportunity for first-generation Canadians to renew old-world animosities. Violence was constant in the four-team men's league of the day, often escalating into fights that required police to break them up.
The league eventually collapsed but Niedermayer worked to bring it back in the early 1960s with the formation of the North Cariboo Senior Soccer League. Even with a new, improved location, the violence continued to bubble to the surface.
In a front page story in the July 12, 1972 edition of The Citizen, Judge G.O. Stewart put the soccer community on notice that if he saw any more soccer players in front of his bench on assault charges, somebody was going to jail. He made the comments after slapping a $300 fine on a player for pushing a referee down and kicking him in the groin. The same referee had earlier had his nose broken by a player.
The Citizen story said the referee was going back home to Ireland but Prince George and Canada certainly hadn't heard the last of John Furlong. He returned to Prince George to take a position with the city and organize the 1978 Northern B.C. Winter Games. From there, of course, he went on to numerous other successes, most famously as CEO of the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver.
Things eventually got better - for both referrees and players - as Niedermayer's enthusiasm for the beautiful game played with honor and respect took hold. Niedermayer built a clubhouse in 1974 without charging for labour and then led the effort to construct a covered grandstand in 1978. He was there when the league moved to the current Rotary Soccer Fields at 15th Avenue.
As well as being a builder, he was a fine player, an enthusiastic coach and a passionate advocate for the game, encouraging the development of indoor and women's leagues.
His efforts rightly earned him induction into the Prince George Sports Hall of Fame in 2010.
When Niedermayer arrived 60 years ago, the men came together to play soccer on a gravel field. Today, both genders and all ages and skill levels play on the Rotary fields or indoors at the fantastic field inside the Northern Sport Centre at UNBC.
All Prince George soccer players, past and present, owe Niedermayer a massive debt of gratitude to be able to enjoy the game using these amazing facilities. They didn't happen by accident. They happened because Niedermayer believed soccer is a great game that should be played on fantastic fields.
As the facilities improved and the city evolved, the violence eventually fell off. Yellow cards, red cards and suspensions are still handed out but it's now extremely rare for the police to be called to break up a fight or for a player to appear before a judge on assault charges. That happened because Niedermayer believed soccer is a great game that rises above petty conflicts and brings communities together.
Today, longtime players joke that team practices now resemble a meeting of the United Nations General Assembly, with so many players from so many different nationalities wearing the same jersey. Back in the old world, those centuries-old animosities and violence may live on but in Prince George, soccer helped bridge those divides, due to the devotion of a first-generation Austrian who saw soccer players before he saw age, gender or nationality.
Thanks again, Mr. Soccer.
