By Josh Bell
They did it with lots of depth, lots of running and no egos.
The Gloucester Celtic capped their run of three consecutive Ottawa premiere league titles by winning the Ontario Cup and the Canadian Soccer Association’s Oct. 9-14 Sport Chek National Club Championship for amateur teams. And they almost didn’t enter the provincial tournament.
Celtic head coach Matt Williams explains that the team didn’t find the prospect of driving to Toronto every weekend through the summer terribly appealing initially.
“We had a vote last year to see if we would enter and we voted no,” Williams recalls. “But we said if we won the premiere league again, then we would have to give it a shot. Then we won and said, ‘OK, this is it.’”
Whether or not they’ll enter the nationals again after their 3-0 win over B.C.’s Surrey United in the championship finals may not even be a decision for them to make.
“There’s been a lot of jokes about entering the tournament again, saying, ‘We won it once, see you later,’” details Williams, whose squad also beat challengers from New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Manitoba en route to the title. “But I think that would be an insult to the competition. We’ll have to enter it.
“The guys enjoyed it too. It was such a different experience playing in those provincial and national games. Most of our guys never played university soccer, so they never experienced anything like that before. Now that they’ve tasted it, they’re going to want to go back.”
The Celtic group carries a mix of soccer backgrounds. They acquired a half-dozen players from Carleton University, four claim Ottawa Internationals roots, while half of the squad grew up with the Gloucester Hornets youth programs, which Williams believes is a testament to the Ottawa Gloucester Soccer Club.
“Those younger teams are huge,” underlines the Gloucester player-turned-coach. “Of the team that won nationals, there are about six guys who have been with Gloucester for around 20 years – maybe eight with 15 or more,” he adds. “They start playing as a kid and have never left Gloucester.”
It’s been quite the rise through the senior ranks for the Celtic as well. The team started in 1999 in Division 6 as a bunch of friends. Not wanting to be unfair, everyone played in the games. The team worked its way up to Div. 1 without ever cutting a player from its roster. If someone leaves, it’s because they aren’t playing soccer anymore or they play for a lower-level team, Williams highlights.
Two players remain from the inaugural Celtic team, and throughout the 14 years, the club has carried on the tradition of playing all players, which proved to be highly valuable come the five-games-in-five-days national event.
“As we worked our way up, we weren’t quite as strong as everyone but we realized that if we ran our butts off, we could do a lot better, so we kept playing everybody,” Williams recounts. “As we brought guys in, it just never changed. Every single new player had to buy in to our system when they joined. The guys know they’re going to come off, so they’re going to give that extra effort out there because they know they have to come off at some point.”
The approach resulted in a “no ego” style, says Ryne Gulliver, a Celtic player of nine years.
“Other teams have great quality as well, but they don’t have the depth that we do,” explains Gulliver, who scored twice in the national championship game. “Everyone’s really tight, really close.”