Toronto-Carib-Soc-History 1

Wellesley Street

1968 was a defining year for the Caribbean community in Toronto. The Caribbean Cultural Committee led by Charles Roach, Peter Marcelline and a few others, were successful in gaining government permission to hold their own Carnival parade in 1968 and the festival was named Caribana. The ironic thing about the composition of the Cultural committee was that some of its member like Leslie Forbes and Peter Marcelline be came administrative members of several football/soccer organization not too long afterwards and that trend continued throughout the existence of the Caribana.

There were also football/soccer players living in St James town around that time. Players such as Junior Parker, Miles Sosa, Alvin “ Dugga ” Thomas, Ronald Ryner, Clyde McNeil, Selwyn “ Doc ” Henry, Anthony “ Skerro ” Skerritt, Roland Braithwaite, and a host of others who were attending the University of Toronto. It was around that time that the idea to form a soccer club was tossed around, and St James town became the ground zero for soccer information.

Almost simultaneously, Patrick ‘ Skedron ’ Smith convinced some high profile footballers from Jamaica national team to come to Canada and play in Canada ’ s professional National Soccer league (NSL) They were Players like Herkley “ Headache ’ Vaz, Lascelles “ Dallas ” Dunkley, Corcel “ Kumar ” Blair and a few others. One of Skedron ’ s major finding was when he connected with Neville Glanville, and introduced him to Carl Bailey , a gentleman who was the leader of West Indies United.

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