Never far from their thoughts
Namesake of memorial tourney played hard, was also a great friend
Looking out across the pitch, Andrew Darley can still see his best friend.
“He would be right there having a beer or over there making fun of the guys,” said Darley, working the concession stand at the Rotary Track Friday night. “That’s the way our soccer community is, everybody is family. We can kick the heck out of each other and go have a beer after.”
As the 23rd annual Medicine Hat seven-a-side men’s spring soccer tournament gets underway, it now pays tribute to one of the men who was there since its inception. The Keith Sykes Memorial will wind up Sunday afternoon, no doubt with a few pints raised in his honour between now and then, but also lots of the sport he loved.
“He was a wonderful man,” said organizer Sean McLachlan. “He was wellloved by a lot of us in the soccer community.”
Sykes, then 49 and a father of three, died in an ammonia accident at CF Industries fertilizer plant in December 2015. A few months later the soccer tournament’s organizers decided to change its name in his honour.
In keeping with the kind of person Sykes was, the hope is for plenty of hard competition followed by camaraderie afterwards. “He was the kind of guy when he’d go and play against you, he’d kick your ankles off you then have a beer with you after,” said Darley. “That’s what we always appreciated about him.”
The host team is the over35 Medicine Hat Wild FC, which admittedly has some younger blokes on it this time around. Chris Kean’s grey hair isn’t fooling anyone, but his first-half goal Friday fooled the opponent’s keeper. With 14 teams, it’s anyone’s guess who will be in Sunday’s final but Kean joked he’ll be there regardless.
“We’ll be out here, you can come sees us,” he said. “Whether we’re here (on the pitch) or not is another story.”
It’s not always easy though. Kean grew up with Sykes, their parents fast friends after moving here from overseas.
“Passion would be the biggest word, he just loved the game; loved watching it, loved playing it,” said Kean.
As Darley looks out, you can tell he’s missing Sykes dearly, as many who called him a friend do.
“He was one of the most selfless men I’ve ever known in my life,” said Darley. “I played soccer with him... he was the sweeper, I was the stopper. He was always there as a big brother, as a friend, he always had everybody’s back on and off the field.”
Roughly half of the teams are from the local region, while others come from Lloydminster, Calgary, Leduc, Red Deer and Lethbridge. There’s no offsides, substitutions are done on the fly and the point is to get everybody moving early in the outdoor season.
For most of the day Friday rain pelted the two pitches where the tournament was to be played. But just before the first whistle, it had just about stopped. If you looked hard enough, you could almost see Sykes smiling down.