International players have joined Powell River Villa in the past but the Vancouver Island Soccer League club is about to expand its horizons.
The division three team is joining forces with Camber College in an attempt to draw quality soccer players who, at the same time, can learn or improve their English.
“We’ve partnered with Camber College to develop a system where we recruit players through the ESL school,” said coach Chris McDonough.
“Hopefully through that we can find some quality players that we can add to our team.”
Demographics and employment opportunities have created a shallow pool of players for all sports in Powell River and Villa has been forced to look outside the community for a solution.
“We’ve got a decent pool of players,” he explained, “but we need more. With no senior men’s league it’s hard to find players that can play at a men’s level.”
At present they are comfortable with filling rosters for home games but personal or work commitments create problems for the 10 or so road games each season.
Both Camber College and Villa hope to benefit from resources offered by the other.
“We’ll get some soccer resumés for some of the players,” explained McDonough, “whether they’ve played at university level or preferably played at the level we’re at or higher would be ideal. If we can do that it will also help the local players because it could bring the standard up as well.”
The intent is not to replace locals but to complement them.
There are three Camber College students on the roster at the present time and McDonough points to them as an example of what they want to do.
“We knew there were a couple of players there so we went after them,” he said. “We invited them out and they proved to be a real help to our team. They are quality players that we were lucky to get.”
Dave Dixon is the founder and academic director of Camber College. “In certain countries like Brazil, Germany, Korea, Japan, soccer is quite popular,” he said. “Through my contacts we can promote studying English and play soccer.” Interested students would be encouraged to demonstrate soccer skill through video, together with details on a resumé.
“I would give that information to Chris and he could weed through it and we would invite ‘x’ number of players every year. It’s not like we want to get all these awesome players and stack the Powell River team, that’s not the point. It’s more for students interested in learning English, but also happen to have some skills and want to play soccer, travel around and have a really unique Canadian experience.”
It is the proverbial win-win-win situation.
“I market Powell River,” Dixon said, “and if there’s another way I can do an add-on to make it better, that’s what I’m looking for. It’s a really great opportunity.”
