Thomas “Tom” Robertson

Born: Scotland in 1881, and came to Canada in 1901.

The first secretary of the Dominion of Canada Football Association, today’s Canadian Soccer Association.  Robertson received an injury as a player that kept him in hospital for 53 weeks, necessitating many operations and finally the loss of a limb.  While in hospital, Tom made up his mind that if he got out alive he would do his best to clean up the game and eliminate the brutality which was prevalent at that time.  He joined the Toronto Scottish executive and asked the Toronto Football Association, the governing body of soccer in Toronto at the time, an organization that played to Canadian Rules, to encourage British fair play in soccer.  This was denied him, and as a result, he led the movement to establish the Toronto and District Football Association in 1908 for teams to play to the rules in use in Britain. 

In 1910, he was elected secretary-treasurer of the Ontario Soccer Association, and held the job through 1911 and 1912.  In 1912, although laughed at for his pains, he took the steps, along with Fred Barter, President of the Province of Quebec Football Association, which resulted in the formation of the Dominion of Canada Football Association, and became its first secretary.  He was made a life member of the DCFA in 1925.  In 1933, he was a member of the DCFA commission that investigated the affairs of the Ontario Football Association.  He was a draftsman by profession, and worked for the Dominion Bridge Company.  He lived variously on Wyatt Avenue, St. Clarens Avenue and Scollard Street in downtown Toronto, and presented the Robertson Cup to the Toronto and District Soccer Association, to be competed for annually to raise money for injured players.