Harry Gauss honoured
2007-11-15
FOR SPECIAL SERVICE TO SOCCER
Harry Gauss, the GM of London City of the Canadian Soccer League, has received an Individual Meritorious Service Award from the Ontario Soccer Association.
The award, presented at the Ontario governing soccer body’s annual banquet in Hamilton on November 10, is reserved for those individuals who, over an extended period of not less than 20 years has rendered special service to the game of soccer.
Harry Gauss, with his father Markus, launched the London City Soccer Club on St. Valentine’s Day, 1973, to what is today the longest standing professional soccer club in North America.
While London City competed in the CSL and its forerunner leagues, Gauss developed a reputation for creating an opportunity for young players to play at the highest level overseas. There have some notable successes over the years, the most recent being the trial and subsequent signing of Paul Munster by Slavia Prague, one of the Czech Republic’s top teams. Tyler Hemming, introduced in 2003 by Gauss as the youngest player in the CSL, is now with Toronto FC. There have been others.
The important meritorious award comes just two years after the elder Markus Gauss was inducted into the London Sports Hall of Fame and just recently the CSL created a Harry Paul Gauss Award for a person having best demonstrated ‘exemplary support, commitment and allegiance’ to the CSL.