Undefeated Mytes herald new league

Jeff Green | Jun 23, 2011

Photo L-r: 1st row - Padraig Brady, Carson Snider, Jack Hammer, Jacob Watson, Jacob Snider, Ray Whitehead, Brennan Brady, Owen Deyo; 2nd row - Vince Pople, Nick Cordeiro, Seth Silver, Simon Cook, Justin Jones; 3rd row - Nicholas Baker, Sheldon Tryon, Owen O’Meara, Jamie Ferguson, Carter Compton; back row - Coaches, Trevor Irwin, Matt Rennie, Karl Hammer, Scotty Darling, Jeff Brady

Spring football has been a Sydenham tradition ever since Jim Latimer started up a youth league several years ago, and this year the Sydenham footballers took a step forward by joining up with the Thousand Islands Football League. Games were played at The Point in Sydenham, at Lasalle High School in Kingston and in Gananoque.

There were two Sydenham teams in the grade 5-7 age group, and two at the grade 8-9 level, plus a Myte team for students in grades 2-4. And it was the Mytes team that showed everyone the way, going undefeated throughout the season and winning the end of season tournament as well.

Since the spring leagues are all geared towards high school football, this all bodes well for the Golden Eagles for the year 2016 and onwards, when the first of the ‘011’ Mytes will hit grade 9.

The teams’ coaches, like in so many other kids’ leagues, were drawn from the ranks of parents. Matt Rennie, Scotty Darling, Karl Hammer, Trevor Irwin, Jeff Brady, all former footballers themselves, came together to teach the youngsters some of the basics of the gamy they all love, and some of it seems to have sunk in.

“When Matt Rennie and I first played football, our coach at Sydenham High School was a man named Glen Foster. One thing we both took away from that experience was that he made football a lot of fun for us, and that is something that we tried to bring to the Mytes this year,” said coach Karl Hammer. “We also wanted to develop the kids as human beings and teach them how to play the game and how to respect the game.”

In addition to finding out that a number of the Sydenham Mytes are extremely athletic, Hammer said he was surprised at how physically strong some of the kids are. “Mostly it was all about the kids having fun,” he said, “and since the kids came from not only Loughborough, but Elginburg, Perth Road, St. Patrick’s and other SHS feeder schools, I expect when the word gets out we will have two Myte teams in the league next year.”