Maple Leafs and Roaring Dragons: Cymru’s epic football tour of 1920s Canada

Iwan Williams

Football tours and visits to far-flung places are commonplace nowadays. Premier League teams think nothing of pre or post season games in Melbourne, LA, Dubai or Tokyo.

Cymru participated in the 2018 China Cup in Nanning, competed in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, and have made the long journey to Kazakhstan in September. Truly a global game.

But years before the internet and instant communication, private jets and thousands of daily commercial flights, the FAW embarked on a groundbreaking and unofficial tour of Canada in 1929.

How did it come about, and how did it go?

A relationship was already in place between the Welsh and Canadian FAs. Indeed Canada – only 24 years after its formation – visited Cymru in 1891 for two unofficial games. The first game took place at The Racecourse, Wrecsam/Wrexham on 21st September, and resulted in a 1-1 draw. The second game also took place at The Racecourse on 12th October, a 2-1 Cymru win.

Whilst England’s first overseas tour took place in 1899 (Germany and Austria), it would take a few decades before Cymru followed suit.

As mentioned in Phil Stead’s “Red Dragons”, an invitation from Canadian FA President, Edinburgh-born John Russell was “favourably received” by the FAW.

Podcast Pêl-droed states that securing a Cymru touring party was a coup for Russell, “A Canadian Football League was set up in 1926 and these tours were seen as an important way of raising the profile of, and interest in, football among the Canadian-born population”.

With a large Irish and Scottish population, Toronto Ulster United FC and Toronto Scottish FC achieved success in the League’s early years.

Experience

A twenty strong player group was selected to travel, and there was plenty of talent and experience in the Cymru squad. Goalkeeper Bert Gray of Manchester City (24 caps), defenders Moses Russell of Plymouth Argyle (23 caps) and Fred Keenor of Cardiff City (32 caps), forwards Ted Vizard of Bolton Wanderers (22 caps) and Len Davies of Cardiff City (23 caps) provided leadership.

Keenor and Davies won the FA Cup with Cardiff two years previously, whilst Ray Bennion (10 caps) was a club stalwart at Manchester United. Fred Warren’s international career was short but impressive, with 3 goals in 6 caps, and the same could be said of Walter Robbins, with 4 goals in 11 caps in the 1930s. Goalkeeper Len Evans (4 caps) of Barry Town made the cut despite not playing in the Football League.

The touring party was managed by Wrexham’s Ted Robbins, FAW Secretary from 1909 to 1946. Robbins, referred to as “the father of Welsh football”, was assisted by FAW Vice President Arthur Thomas and coach George Latham. Newtown’s Latham won ten caps between 1905 and 1913, and was awarded the Military Cross for his actions during the First World War.

The Cymru group left Liverpool on 24th May onboard the Canadian Pacific liner SS Duchess of Atholl. Crossing the Atlantic, only 17 years after the Titanic sank, would be a lengthy journey with strong stomachs a necessity.

“Red Dragons” mentions Keenor’s memories of the journey “Our first two days at sea were like a nightmare and most of us spent the time in our bunks wishing that the ship would go down”. Despite the seasickness, May 1929 was ‘as good as it gets’ for the travelling party, more than a decade after the First World War (Fred Keenor fought in the Battle of the Somme and was severely injured), a few months before the devastating Wall Street crash in October and ensuing Great Depression, and a decade before the breakout of the Second World War.

Camaraderie 

The Atlantic crossing would take four or five days and this, coupled with the weeks trekking across Canada (13,000 miles altogether with most on the Canadian Pacific Railway across the prairies and through the Rockies), would give the party plenty of time to bond and camaraderie.

Departing in late May meant the party missed the UK General Election on 30th May, won by Labour’s Ramsay MacDonald with Aneurin Bevan becoming MP for Ebbw Vale.

An ambitious fifteen game schedule was organised from Montreal to Victoria – some 2875 miles apart – over the course of one month. Cymru won all fifteen games, with 61 goals scored (seventeen by Len Davies!) and only ten conceded. The first game took place against Montreal and District on 1st June, a 3-1 win.

The Montreal Gazette reported on 1st June that the players had been training hard on the ship and “are fit as fiddles” according to George Latham. 1-0 and 4-1 wins over Hamilton and Toronto followed, whilst the goals started flowing in the central provinces – a 7-2 win over Manitoba on 8th June “in the presence of a large and enthusiastic crowd” according to the South Wales Daily Post, a 7-0 win over Regina and District on 10th June, and a 10-1 win over Calgary and District on 12th June, with hattricks in the latter for Arsenal’s Charlie Jones and Wrexham’s John Neal according to the Canadian Soccer History webpage.

The Calgary Daily Herald included a photo of Joe Big Plume, chief of the Sarcees, on 14th June with Ted Robbins and Arthur Thomas having made them “braves in his tribe”.

Welsh immigrants

With around 1500 Welsh immigrants in Saskatchewan in the 1920s (many of them Patagonian Welsh who relocated to Canada in 1902), the local Welsh community in Regina provided a warm ‘Croeso’, however it is believed that they were disappointed that no one in the travelling party could speak Cymraeg with them. It’s quite possible that Llandudno’s Sammy Brookes was a spectator: Brookes won two Cymru caps in 1900 and moved to Saskatchewan in his later years.

Three clean sheets were secured in British Columbia: a 3-0 win over Upper Island in Nanaimo on 15th June, a 8-0 win over Lower Mainland (with Len Davies scoring seven) in Vancouver on 17th June, and a 1-0 win over Victoria and District on 19th June. A 2-1 win over Westminster Royals in New Westminster followed before the return journey eastwards.

Further wins took place in the central provinces in Edmonton (a 2-1 win on 24th June) and Saskatoon (a 6-1 win on 26th June) before a second game in Toronto on 1st July, a 3-1 win over Ontario. According to Ian Garland and Gareth Davies’ “Sons of Cambria”, an informal additional game was played on 28th June. The ‘Reds’ beat the ‘Whites’ 4-2 in Winnipeg, with each side “consisting of eight Welsh players and three Canadian players”. On 29th June, the Western Mail pictured the touring party in their suits at the Banff Springs Hotel, and reported that they would return home on the SS Duchess of Bedford on 5th July.

The tour concluded with wins over Hamilton and District (a 2-0 win on 2nd July) and Montreal and District (a 2-1 win on 3rd July). Three games in the final three days of the demanding tour meant plenty of squad rotation! And according to the “Before the ‘D’” webpage, Cymru finished the game in Hamilton with ten men “after Moses Russell was assaulted by spectators…and threatened with a gun”!

The New York Times ran with an eye-catching title “Fights mar Welsh soccer: Tourists win in Canada, but two are hurt in battles”.

The unofficial status of the tour i.e. no full caps awarded, meant that three of the twenty strong squad were incredibly unlucky. Thomas Henry Lewis (New Brighton and later Holywell Arcadians), Robert ‘Bob’ Pugh (Hereford and Newport) and Albert ‘Nip’ Wardell (also Hereford and Newport) – all born over the border – represented Cymru in Canada but never won full caps and therefore do not feature on the official list of senior Cymru internationals.

Shirt numbers

As stated in “Red Dragons”, Cymru’s first overseas tour was also the first use of numbers on the back of Welsh match shirts. The arduous but successful tour would whet the appetite for further overseas travel, paving the way for Cymru’s first official game outside the Celtic nations and England, the 1-1 draw with France in Paris in 1933.

Despite the positive results, the tour didn’t help with preparations for the British Home Championship: Cymru lost 4-2 to Scotland and 6-0 to England in the autumn of 1929. The Daily Standard of Brisbane reported later that the tour “resulted in a net loss of £1000” for the FAW.

With the 1891 Wrexham friendlies and 1929 tour marked as ‘unofficial’, the first formal men’s games between Cymru and Canada took place in 1986. Canada won a 2-0 friendly on 10th May in Toronto, whilst a second friendly took place in Vancouver, a 3-0 Cymru win on 19th May with Dean Saunders (two goals) and Malcolm Allen on the scoresheet.

A third friendly took place at The Racecourse in May 2004, a 1-0 Cymru win with Paul Parry the scorer. Cymru women have played Canada twice: a 4-0 defeat in the Algarve Cup in 2002, and a 3-0 friendly defeat in Cardiff in 2021.

There are other football connections between Cymru and Canada. Leo Newton was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1888 and represented Cymru once in 1912. Paul James was born in Cardiff and won 46 caps for Canada between 1983 and 1993. Indeed James played against Cymru in the Toronto friendly in 1986.

John Hughes was born in Swansea and won five caps for Canada between 1986 and 1987. Ken Leek played for Montreal Concordia in 1961, Terry Yorath represented the Vancouver Whitecaps in the early 80s, whilst the legendary John Charles managed Hamilton Steelers for a short stint in 1987.

Calgary born Owen Hargreaves played for Cymru Under 19s before opting for an international career with England. Robert Earnshaw played for Toronto FC and ended his career with Vancouver Whitecaps, with Carl Robinson his manager at the Whitecaps between 2013 and 2018. And Cymru women’s team manager Rhian Wilkinson, born in Pointe-Claire, Quebec, to a Welsh mother, won an incredible 181 caps for Canada. We wait to see whether Cardiff-born Gabriele Biancheri will play for Cymru or Canada (although it’s looking promising!).

The Swansea friendly on 9th September will be another opportunity to welcome Canada to Cymru, 134 years after the first visit. And with FIFA World Cup 2026 games taking place in Toronto and Vancouver, fingers crossed we’ll see Cymru return to Canada next year, 97 years after a proper groundbreaking tour, a real footballing adventure and journey into the unknown.

Cymru squad to Canada 1929

Len Evans (Barry), Bert Gray (Man City), Moses Russell (Plymouth), Billy Jennings (Bolton), Albert Lumberg (Wrexham), William Rogers (Wrexham), Fred Keenor (Cardiff), Edward Lawrence (Clapton Orient), Ray Bennion (Man United), Albert Wardell (Newport), Thomas H Lewis (New Brighton), Bob Pugh (Newport), Walter Robbins (Cardiff), Fred Cook (Portsmouth), Fred Warren (Cardiff), John Neal (Wrexham), Charlie Jones (Arsenal), Ted Vizard (Bolton), Rees Williams (Man United), Len Davies (Cardiff)

Cymru tour of Canada results 1929

1st June – v Montreal and District (Montreal) won 3-1

3rd June – v Hamilton and District (Hamilton) won 1-0

5th June – v Toronto and District (Toronto) won 4-1

8th June – v Manitoba (Winnipeg) won 7-2

10th June – v Regina and District (Regina) won 7-0

12th June – v Calgary and District (Calgary) won 10-1

15th June – v Upper (All) Island (Nanaimo) won 3-0

17th June – v Lower Mainland (Vancouver) won 8-0

19th June – v Victoria and District (Victoria) won 1-0

22nd June – v Westminster Royals (New Westminster) won 2-1

24th June – v Edmonton and District (Edmonton) won 2-1

26th June – v Saskatoon and District (Saskatoon) won 6-1

1st July – v Ontario (Toronto) won 3-1

2nd July – v Hamilton and District (Hamilton) won 2-0

3rd July – v Montreal and District (Montreal) won 2-1

With thanks to Ian Garland and Gareth Davies’ thorough research as featured in ‘Sons of Cambria’