Christine O’Connor knows a thing or two about firsts.
She was the first president of the Winnipeg Women’s Soccer League (WWSL), the first female director to serve on the Manitoba Soccer Association (MSA) board, and the first administrator of Canada’s national women’s soccer team when it was first formed.
O’Connor can now add another one to the list as the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame has chosen the 72-year-old Winnipegger as one of the first two females to be inducted into their builder’s category. She will share that honour with fellow class of 2024 inductee Leeta Sokalski, a former BC Soccer president and Canada Soccer board member, and they will be enshrined May 4 at Canada Soccer’s annual awards banquet in Montreal.
O’Connor is just the third Manitoban to get the call from the hall, joining Dr. Fred Stambrook (2006) and Héctor Vergara (2014).
“When they first called me to speak to me about it, I thought they were playing a trick on me, actually,” O’Connor said. “I never anticipated it in my whole life. Ever. I’m very honoured that I was chosen. There’s been a lot of very good volunteers in soccer who haven’t gotten any recognition at all.”
O’Connor was the president of Manitoba Soccer from 2010-12 and made it a priority to get Winnipeg selected as an official host city for the 2015 FIFA Women’s World Cup. She ended up doing just that, as the event drew 194,632 total spectators across seven matches and generated a combined $78.3 million for the province and city.
“When we were putting the bid together with the City of Winnipeg, and the tours that we did with people from FIFA coming here seeing sites, she was an integral part of that group. She was pushing for the women’s game and for having it here,” said Vergara, the executive director of the MSA.
“She worked really hard with our other volunteers that we were seen in a good light by the FIFA folks and Canada Soccer. She has a passion for the game and a passion for having the sport move forward.”
The World Cup being played in her own backyard is the proudest moment of her career.
“I just had a sense of pride when I wore that red dress and greeted the guests in the hospitality suite. To me, I thought ‘This is it, this is what you are here for, to finish this off and make the world appreciate Winnipeg,’” said O’Connor, who moved to Winnipeg in 1974 from Manchester, England with her husband Cavan.
What she did on the amateur level isn’t far behind. O’Connor and Cavan founded the WWSL in 1986 with four teams. The league is still running strong today and has grown to seven divisions.
“We didn’t have a field. So, we had to use a school field out in Lorette somewhere and Cavan and some of the other coaches got lawn mowers and cut the grass and put the lights on and the nets up. Those are the original things that happened that people don’t realize. That’s how things started,” said O’Connor.
That same year is when Canada’s women’s national team program began. O’Connor served as their tour manager from 1986-90.
“The women had to wear the men’s uniforms and pay $25 for their tracksuits, and I paid for their equipment bags. That’s how the women’s national team started,” said O’Connor. “Everything was a struggle, but I was proud that we had a women’s national team. It started a new era for women in sports.”
She would once again work as their manager at the 1999 Pan Am Games in Winnipeg.
O’Connor was inducted into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame in 2010 and the Manitoba Soccer Hall of Fame in 2002.
She also owned and operated a popular soccer store in town called Sweat Shack for 33 years before retiring in 2013.
Soccer has been her whole life, and she wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.
“The sport of soccer has been good to me. I’ve given my time, and it gave me back the rewards.”
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Taylor Allen
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Eighteen years old and still in high school, Taylor got his start with the Free Press on June 1, 2011. Well, sort of…
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