Footie aficionado Scott Strasser authors book on ‘why a lot of teams failed versus why Cavalry FC succeeded’
Growing up playing competitive soccer in Calgary, Scott Strasser had a front-row seat to watch Cavalry FC spring to life.
And that perspective is reflected in the Postmedia journalist’s new book — Here Come The Cavalry! — which covers not only the early, successful days of Calgary’s professional footie club but also the history of its many short-lived predecessors.
“Writing a book was like a bucket-list thing for me,” said 30-year-old Strasser, when talking of Here Come The Cavalry! Chronicling the History of Soccer in Calgary. “So I always knew I wanted to at some point.
“And the old adage that you should write what you know really applies to me in terms of Calgary soccer,” continued Strasser. “Because I’ve been kind of steeped in Calgary soccer for my whole life, like from a young age as a player up until my 20s as a journalist, so it was just something I knew about.”
And how.
As a youngster with Chinooks Soccer Club in the city, the native Calgarian played with and against many names now familiar to footie fans of Cavalry.
A few are still front and centre with the professional club, as it prepares to host York United FC on Saturday at ATCO Field (2 p.m., OneSoccer, OneSoccer.ca).
“I covered Cavalry in 2019 for a Vancouver-based blog called ‘Away From the Numbers,’” said Strasser of the team’s inaugural campaign. “But back in the early 2000s and up until about 2013, I played competitive soccer in Calgary, actually with and against a lot of guys who were on that 2019 roster. I played against Tommy Wheeldon Jr.’s Calgary Foothills FC teams growing up, so I was very familiar with him and his family and their story.
“My Chinooks team … we were the provincial champions in 2012 in under-18s. We actually beat Tommy’s Foothills team in the final, and that team had Dominick Zator on it. So that’s kind of my soccer claim to fame.”
Strasser’s head coach with the Chinooks was Thomas Niendorf, who previously coached the Calgary Storm of the USL Development League and the USL A-League in the early 2000s and is a central figure of the book. Niendorf is also the man responsible for sending the likes of area prospects Owen Hargreaves, Kevin McKenna and Nik Ledgerwood to Germany.
Strasser also played against Cavalry stars past and present — such as Marco Carducci, Nico Pasquotti, Tofa Fakunle and Elijah Adekugbe — had a brief stint with Southwest United and redshirted for one year with the University of Calgary Dinos, before a career in journalism came calling.
And from that eventually came that book he wanted to write, backed by the blessing of wife Jodi and young son Elliot.
“So when the pro team formed and I was covering it, about halfway through the season when they beat Whitecaps, I knew I wanted to write a book about kind of a journey up until that point because I knew Cavalry didn’t start in 2019,” Strasser said. “It started with the Foothills PDL team that emerged in 2015. So I wanted to kind of tell that story from basically the arrival of the Foothills PDL team up to and including Cavalry FC.
“Then you have to go back to the Calgary Storm to explain how the Wheeldon family arrived in Calgary, so I knew I’d be at least including some chapters about that team,” continued Strasser. “And while researching the Storm, I discovered through Calgary Herald archives about the teams that came in the 1980s.”
The Boomers, the Kickers, the Strikers …
The Storm and the Mustangs.
“It turned into a bigger project than I anticipated,” Strasser said. “But while I was kind of writing it, I realized why a lot of teams failed versus why Cavalry succeeded. And that was kind of my thesis in the end. It was what lessons have Cavalry FC learned to avoid the pitfalls and the struggles that their predecessors experienced in Calgary? And what have they done differently to ensure that they would have some longevity?”
Without spoiling the book’s ending, a strong venue, good timing and ownership with top-shelf commitment, deep pockets and a better connection to the community are the most notable answers to those questions.
“I’m honoured to be mentioned in it,” said Wheeldon, the GM/head coach of Cavalry. “I played for the Calgary Storm in the early 2000s with a young Nik Ledgerwood, and my father (Tommy Wheeldon Sr.) was the coach at the time. And as Scott wrote about in the book, it’s no longer here, nobody remembers it, and if I mentioned it in passing in a conversation, people are curious.
“But Calvary have been around for six years now, and it’s taken the investment of the Southern family — in particular, Linda Southern-Heathcott — and that of Spruce Meadows, to make it exist.”
Strasser’s project took upwards of two years to complete, and he worked with FriesenPress to get it published this spring.
Copies of Here Come The Cavalry! are available at World Of Soccer, by ordering online from a host of retailers — such as Amazon, Indigo and Barnes & Noble — or by emailing the author himself at [email protected].
“I think it is a really good story — the evolution of soccer in this city,” added Strasser, who now co-hosts the ‘YYC Soccer Podcast’ with fellow footie aficionado Jason Kmet. “It’s one that it has been told, but it hasn’t been told in a book format yet. I couldn’t find anything similar. I found all the articles, so it’s been covered, but a lot of people have forgotten about the history, or they never knew about it to begin with. So I did want to bring some of those stories back to the fold, especially the stories from the ’80s and the early 2000s.”
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Fresh off last Sunday’s 1-0 edge of host Valour FC in Winnipeg, Cavalry (3-8-2) — with 17 points — sits one point shy of a playoff spot in the Canadian Premier League. Meanwhile, York United (6-2-5) — on 20 points — is not far up the table but playing hearty football in second spot … The CPL rivals battled to a 2-2 draw in mid-May, also at ATCO Field … Cavs superstar Ali Musse (ankle) remains out, and fellow forward Willy Akio (ankle) has been ruled out for the season … Other recent Cavalry moves have seen: the departures of midfielder Lucas Dias and goalkeeper Jack Barrett back to Portugal’s Sporting CP and England’s Everton FC, respectively, to end their loan spells; and the signings of forward Nicolas Wähling — a 26-year-old formerly with Germany’s TSV Steinbach Haiger — and ’keeper Joseph Holliday — a 19-year-old previously with the Cavalry U-21 side.