{"id":749455,"date":"2026-06-20T12:34:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:34:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/749455\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T12:34:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T12:34:17","slug":"my-grandfather-was-a-soccer-star-in-a-strange-way-his-career-prepared-me-for-fatherhood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/749455\/","title":{"rendered":"My grandfather was a soccer star. In a strange way, his career prepared me for fatherhood"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mark Medley is The Globe and Mail\u2019s Deputy Opinion Editor and author of Live to See the Day: Impossible Goals, Unimaginable Futures, and the Pursuit of Things That May Never Be<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A couple of months ago, I spent an evening in the backyard of my father\u2019s home, in London, Ont., playing soccer with my son. It was one of the spring\u2019s first warm days and, as the sun descended, we kicked a tiny rainbow ball back and forth, back and forth, across the grass. Luke insisted I play goalie, and I\u2019d let the ball roll through my legs, in mock anguish, as he ran around the yard, arms aloft, screaming in joy, as if he\u2019d just kicked the winning penalty in the World Cup finals. For a five-year-old who has never played organized soccer, I thought he possessed a rather mighty right foot.<\/p>\n

This was a profoundly \u201cdad moment\u201d \u2013 the sort of thing I imagined doing one day, a decade earlier, when I first became a father. But it was also one of those moments when the past suddenly reaches into the present, and I recalled a similar scene, 40 years earlier, at my grandfather\u2019s house across town, when I was the same age as my son is now. <\/p>\n

Granddad stood in the yard of a yellow-bricked bungalow, the last home he lived in alone, studying me with the seriousness of a drill instructor. I ran up to the ball and kicked it weakly toward him. He passed it back and we repeated the process again. Then, as now, I was an awkward player, the sport a language my body did not comprehend, although one I felt should have been its mother tongue. <\/p>\n

My grandfather was a professional soccer player. (And Granddad, I\u2019m sorry I\u2019m calling it soccer, but I must adhere to Globe and Mail style.) Not only was he a professional soccer player, he played for Tottenham Hotspur<\/a>, one of Britain\u2019s most storied clubs. And not only did he play for Spurs, he was, for a time, one of their stars, and also represented England on the national team on numerous occasions. He knew glory. <\/p>\n

Les Medley tackles Arsenal captain Joe Mercer during a match on Dec. 23, 1950. | A family photo shows Les Medley holding his grandson Mark Medley, age one, outside the latter\u2019s family home in 1982.<\/p>\n

Hulton Archive\/Getty Images | Courtesy of Steven Medley<\/p>\n

This is an inheritance and history I have grappled with from the time I learned of it. I heard the stories of his soccer career as a boy, boasted of them to friends as a teenager, and passed them down to my sons when I became a father. <\/p>\n

And finally, last month, on the 75th anniversary of his greatest achievement, I went back to London to make sense of it all. <\/p>\n

From Liverpool Street station we took the overground north. As we approached our destination, I turned to my father and asked if any of this looked familiar. <\/p>\n

It did not. It had been more than 70 years since he\u2019d last seen Spurs play at home, and he only had the faintest memories of White Hart Lane<\/a>, the club\u2019s former home, which was torn down after the 2016-17 season to make way for the modern marvel that now appeared before us: Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, built over the course of two years and at a cost<\/a> of \u00a31.2-billion in the same location as the club\u2019s former grounds. With a capacity of 62,850, it is one of the largest stadiums in England, and hosts the National Football League when the usurpers of the sport\u2019s true name come to town each year.<\/p>\n

The three of us \u2013 my eldest son, 10-year-old James, had accompanied us on this pilgrimage \u2013 disembarked from the train and headed toward the stadium along with only a smattering of Spurs supporters, the game being more than two hours from kickoff. I had the odd sensation of coming home, although I had never been here before.<\/p>\n

Before heading into the stadium, we took a right on High Road and entered the Tottenham Experience shop, the largest retail store<\/a> of any European club, to get kitted out. It was an urgent mission: Our trio had but a lonely Spurs baseball cap, which my wife gifted me for Christmas one year, and which I was afraid to wear around London in the days leading up to the match, lest an overzealous Arsenal or Chelsea supporter beat me up. I bought a scarf, a toque, a T-shirt and a sweatshirt for Luke, who\u2019d stayed back in Toronto, while James insisted I buy jerseys for several of his friends. He got one as well, paying extra to print MEDLEY, along with his great-grandfather\u2019s number \u2013 11 \u2013 on the back. He\u2019d pulled on the jersey before we\u2019d left the shop.<\/p>\n

I\u2019d had this trip in mind for a number of years, ever since I realized we were approaching the 75th anniversary of the year Granddad helped lead the club to its first-ever First Division championship. When we finally made it inside the stadium, I picked up the match-day program for the night\u2019s clash against Leeds United. <\/p>\n

Upon opening it, the first thing I saw was a two-page story celebrating the very anniversary we were here to mark. And there, named in the first sentence, was Granddad: Les Medley. <\/p>\n

A story marking the 75th anniversary of Tottenham Hotspur winning their first-ever First Division championship appears in the match day programme for the May 11, 2026 game against Leeds United.<\/p>\n

A story marking the 75th anniversary of Tottenham Hotspur winning their first-ever First Division championship appears in the match day programme for the May 11, 2026 game against Leeds United.<\/p>\n

At the bottom of the page was a black-and-white photograph of the team with the league trophy. Granddad was sitting in the middle row, third from the right, arms crossed. He sported a bemused look on his face, as if he was surprised to find us at his old stomping grounds.<\/p>\n

Or maybe he was wondering what took us so long to come back. <\/p>\n

You might say Granddad was fated to play for Tottenham Hotspur. Leslie Dennis Medley<\/a> came into the world on Sept. 3, 1920, in Edmonton, in north London, \u201ca local hero, born within shouting distance of the White Hart Lane ground,\u201d according to Norman Giller<\/a>, an author and sports historian who has written several books about Spurs. After an impressive youth career \u2013 he played alongside a group of English schoolboys against Scotland in 1935 \u2013 Granddad was signed by his hometown club on Sept. 9, 1936, days after turning 16, and joined their junior team. Less than three years later, on Feb. 20, 1939, he turned pro.<\/p>\n

Seven months later, war broke out in Europe. While Granddad continued to play for the club during the conflict, he also enlisted in the Royal Air Force (RAF) and was shipped across the Atlantic to Canada for training. While attending navigation school in Hamilton he met my grandmother, Thelma Morris, whom he married in 1944. She was only 17 years old, yet the marriage license referred to her as a \u201cspinster.\u201d <\/p>\n

The newlyweds moved to London after the war, though their stay was short-lived; Thelma suffered from poor health, and in the fall of 1946 they went back to Ontario, where Granddad played for various local clubs<\/a>, including Ulster United and Toronto Greenbacks. My father was born in the summer of 1947. The young family returned to England in January, and Granddad soon rejoined Spurs, becoming a key member of the club\u2019s fabled<\/a> \u201cpush-and-rush\u201d teams. <\/p>\n

Les Medley passes the ball to Eddie Bailey, who scores against Wales. The game, played on Oct. 20, 1951, ended in a 1-1 tie.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

Playing outside left \u2013 the equivalent of a left winger in today\u2019s game \u2013 he led the team with 18 goals in the 1949-50 season as they captured the Second Division; he added 11 goals<\/a> the following season as they took home the First Division league championship.<\/p>\n

\u201cYour Granddad played in the days when every team had a couple of flying wingers, and Les was as fast and skillful as any of them,\u201d Mr. Giller, who watched my grandfather play when he was a kid, told me in an e-mail. <\/p>\n

Les Medley passes the ball towards a teammate in a game against Ireland on Nov. 14, 1951. England won the match 2-0.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

Granddad, he said, \u201cwas a fast, upright player, two-footed but preferring the left,\u201d who was \u201call about speed and accuracy. Your Granddad was slightly built\u201d \u2013 Granddad topped out at 5 foot 7, according to club records \u2013 \u201cbut graceful and able to glide past the vicious tackles he faced in an age when the game was much more physical than today.\u201d<\/p>\n

I, of course, never had the opportunity to watch him play, but in the early days of YouTube I discovered that footage from his playing days had been uploaded to the video-sharing platform. I excitedly called my father into our computer room and together we watched the old black-and-white newsreels, courtesy of British Path\u00e9, of him on Spurs and England, for which he was capped a half-dozen times. I vividly recall seeing the footage<\/a> from a match against Newcastle from 1952 for the first time, Granddad hurtling himself through the air and colliding with the opponent\u2019s keeper as they both made a play for the ball. All the stories I\u2019d heard were suddenly brought to life. <\/p>\n

He suited up for Spurs for the final time in April, 1953, before leaving the club for good. His prime had been interrupted by the Second World War, but he still scored an impressive 65 goals during his multiple stints with the team. <\/p>\n

In an obituary<\/a> in The Guardian, Granddad was remembered as a player \u201csharp in both thought and movement\u201d with \u201cthe winger\u2019s gift of acceleration and tight ball control \u2013 he could use either foot to advantage, crossed the ball effectively, and often moved inside for a crack at goal.\u201d <\/p>\n

Les Medley scores a goal against Wales on Dec. 5, 1951. It was too little, too late, as Wales beat the ‘Rest of the UK’ team 3-2.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

Afterwards, the family moved around for much of the next decade: back to Canada, South Africa for several years, England again. <\/p>\n

In 1962, shortly after they\u2019d returned to Canada, Thelma died<\/a>, leaving Granddad a widower with two kids, including a year-old daughter. He opened a fish-and-chip shop in London, Ont., which he ran for 15 years. He never played organized soccer again. <\/p>\n

My father played soccer when the family lived overseas, though he learned there wasn\u2019t much appetite for the sport when he came back to Canada. \u201cI tried to convince the phys-ed head at the high school here in London to start a soccer team,\u201d he recently recalled. \u201cHe said no. He didn\u2019t want soccer. So that was it.\u201d He went to a single try-out when he arrived to the University of Western Ontario, but didn\u2019t go back. \u201cI wasn\u2019t good enough, so I didn\u2019t even try to make the team,\u201d he told me. Later, he coached high-school soccer for a dozen years, once leading his Oshawa team to the Ontario-wide finals. <\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s me. I\u2019ve long struggled to reconcile how, for a time, my grandfather played in the highest echelon of soccer on the planet, whereas I am one of the worst players to ever lace up a pair of cleats.<\/p>\n

It was the first sport I played as a child, donning Brookside\u2019s striking red-and-grey kit for several seasons while growing up in Oshawa. Looking back on my soccer career, several moments stand out: the time I allowed a goal because I was mindlessly tracking an airplane as it passed high over the field; the time I managed to shake my defender and found myself on a breakaway, only to boot the ball yards wide of the net; the time I ran away from the field and hid in a bush because I didn\u2019t want the coach to put me back in the game. I never scored, not once, not ever, which is a very difficult thing to do playing against six- and seven-year-olds, where the number of goals routinely reached double digits. I take some perverse pleasure in this accomplishment. <\/p>\n

Brookside won the league championship my final year, one-nil, which remains the highlight of my athletic career despite my not contributing to the victory.<\/p>\n

Mark Medley, who failed to score a single goal during his youth soccer career, with his medal after his team, Brookside, won the league championship. | Les Medley (second from left) and his Tottenham Hotspur teammates celebrate their 1950-51 First Division title win.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Steven Medley | S&G\/PA Images via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Still, what strikes me, in retrospect, is that I never felt an urge to be excellent, to master the sport like Granddad had. Why? Did I feel there was no point in trying? It was as if, since he\u2019d already reached the peak, there was no need to follow his path \u2013 a flag had already been planted on the summit, bearing the Medley name. I switched to softball the following summer.<\/p>\n

I had soccer-mad friends who supported Arsenal or Manchester United or Juventus, wore the jerseys and worshipped at the altar of David Beckham and Patrick Vieira and Roberto Baggio. But my attachment to the sport was through family, not fandom. I didn\u2019t really follow Spurs, and only pulled an England jersey from my closet every four years, during the World Cup, when I joined my father in misery as we witnessed the national team find new and diabolical ways to lose. (There are groans the human body produces only when watching England play soccer.)<\/p>\n

The Three Lions have won the tournament once, in 1966, long after Granddad\u2019s career had ended, but I often impressed my friends by telling them he\u2019d just missed out on the team. They remain my team, above even Canada. That\u2019s why, before the squad\u2019s opening match against Croatia at this World Cup, I was aghast when I heard James tell his best friend that he wasn\u2019t cheering for England. I interrupted their conversation and said this wasn\u2019t allowed. \u201cOkay,\u201d he said, rather glumly, \u201cbut when England gets eliminated in the first knockout game, I\u2019m cheering for France.\u201d (He was singing a different tune after Wednesday\u2019s game, which saw former Spurs star Harry Kane score twice<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

When I finally began paying attention to Spurs, I learned it was not much better than rooting for England. To be a fan of Tottenham Hotspur \u2013 named after the English rebel Sir Henry Percy, also known as Harry Hotspur, immortalized by Shakespeare in Henry IV, Part 1 \u2013 is to know agony. Not everyone is cut out to be a Spurs fan. Your tolerance for pain must be high.<\/p>\n

Les Medley challenges Newcastle player Bobby Cowell in the Fourth Round of the FA Cup on Feb. 2, 1952 in front of over 69,000 supporters at White Hart Lane. Spurs lost 3-0 and Newcastle went on to win the Cup in May.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Masochists Welcome\u2019 should be a sign over the door,\u201d said Matt Franck, the chairman of Toronto Spurs, the team\u2019s largest supporters\u2019 club in the country. He put it in a way that Canadian non-soccer fans reading now might instantly understand: \u201cWe\u2019re kinda like the Leafs.\u201d<\/p>\n

They are indeed one of the most famous franchises in the Premier League, which came into existence on Feb. 20, 1992, exactly 53 years after Granddad signed his pro contract. But of the \u201cBig Six\u201d clubs \u2013 along with Chelsea, Liverpool, Arsenal, Manchester City and Manchester United \u2013 Spurs are the only team to have never won the Premier League title. (I don\u2019t want to erase the team\u2019s success, though: besides the First Division championship in 1950-51 that Granddad was a part of, they won it again in 1960-61, have captured eight FA Cups, the annual knockout tournament between English clubs, and won the continent-wide UEFA Cup\/Europa League three times, including last year.) That said, earlier this year, I published a book about impossible goals<\/a>, and Spurs winning the Premier League \u2013 or the Champions League \u2013 often feels like one.<\/p>\n

Still, there is meaning to be found in the heartbreak.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re supposed to win all the time, it\u2019s expectation,\u201d Mr. Franck told me. \u201cI would rather have hope than expectation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mark Medley, his son James and his father Steven hold Les Medley’s contracts with Tottenham Hotspur after the game against Leeds United, which ended in a tie.<\/p>\n

Courtesy Mark Medley<\/p>\n

Fatherhood, I have discovered this last decade, is like that. I hope for my two boys \u2013 that they are happy, that they find love and meaning in their lives. I expect to be a good father, yes, but I hope that they think that I am. I hesitate to place expectations on them, which can be crushing. Hope is where life happens; the space where we are allowed to try, and make mistakes, and try again, believing this time it will be better. That if the game ends in a loss, next time it might end in a win. Expectation, followed by failure, guarantees disappointment.<\/p>\n

That said, being a Spurs (and England) supporter has prepared me well for disappointment. And to be a parent is to know disappointment. Not with your kids, but with yourself. You think you will be perfect, and then you fail. You\u2019re on your phone too much. You\u2019re impatient. You wish they\u2019d just fall asleep so you can waste a night watching Netflix. You tell them they can\u2019t cheer for France. <\/p>\n

By the time you realize this they\u2019ve grown up, and you\u2019ve been relegated. <\/p>\n

When we began discussing the trip last fall, it seemed that Spurs might finally break the curse. After seven games, the club was in third place, only two points back of table-leading Arsenal, their north London archrival. But by the time we booked our flights, earlier this year, they were in the midst of a horrifically bad run that grew worse each week. (The Wikipedia entry<\/a> described it as \u201ca historically embarrassing season on the pitch.\u201d) They went 15 games without a win, during which time they fired two managers, plummeting down the table like a climber whose rope broke. The team was flailing. (\u201cHow we would do with a Les Medley swooping down that left wing!\u201d Mr. Giller, the historian and lifelong Spurs supporter, told me during this stretch.) <\/p>\n

When my father and I had chosen the game, against Leeds United, it seemed it would be a rather unimportant game. Now, as our trip approached, relegation \u2013 each year, the bottom three clubs are booted into a lower division, the Championship, which, despite its winning name, is like if the Blue Jays were sent down to play in Triple-A \u2013 was a distinct possibility, something Spurs had not experienced in 50 years. Masochists welcome.<\/p>\n

Mark Medley, his son James and his father Steven, pictured in Tottenham Hotspur Stadium after the game with Leeds United on May 11, 2026. <\/p>\n

Courtesy Mark Medley<\/p>\n

Kickoff occurred on a cool May evening at 8 p.m. We were surrounded by more than 60,000 fervent supporters \u2013 mostly men in their 50s whose faces betrayed the toll Spurs fandom had taken on their bodies. I could feel the anxiety inside the stadium. The group sitting in front of us screamed at the referee and players with an astounding ferocity, cursing with such inventiveness as to be a new language. \u201cThey are swearing a lot,\u201d remarked James at one point, adding he\u2019d counted \u201cat least 80\u2033 uses of the F-word. (He didn\u2019t flinch, possibly because he didn\u2019t understand the word, at the just-as-frequent use of the C-word.)<\/p>\n

And the fans were in a good mood! Spurs seemed in control of the game, the players showing an urgency lacking in previous matches. In the 50th minute, a blistering right foot by Mathys Tel<\/a> from the edge of the penalty box curled into the back of the net. He ran toward the edge of the field and jumped in the air and pumped his fist, and I noticed the number on the back of the forward\u2019s jersey: 11. Writing this, even now, I have goosebumps.<\/p>\n

Tottenham Hotspur forward Mathys Tel celebrates scoring a goal against Leeds United.<\/p>\n

Dylan Martinez\/Reuters<\/p>\n

This being a Spurs game, the joy could only be sustained for so long; there was an awful penalty call against Spurs in the 72nd minute, which the Leeds player converted, neatly and efficiently, to tie the game. The game ended in a draw. Relegation loomed.<\/p>\n

As we collected our belongings and headed for the exit, one of the curse-inclined men in front of us turned to his friends.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the hope that kills you,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

And yet it\u2019s the hope that also sustains you, in soccer and in parenthood. <\/p>\n

In the end, Spurs held on by the skin of their teeth and finished 17th for the second year in a row, avoiding relegation by two measly points. To make matters worse, Arsenal \u2013 Arsenal! \u2013 won the league for the first time since 2004. <\/p>\n

Grandad died <\/a>on Feb. 21, 2001 \u2013 a day after the 62nd anniversary of turning pro. The Medley family soccer story seemed to end with him, or at least lay dormant for two decades. <\/p>\n

Les Medley scores an equalizing goal for England against France on Oct. 3, 1951. The game ended in a 2-2 tie.<\/p>\n

Reuters<\/p>\n

James played organized soccer for a few years, enjoying a career similar to mine, and you\u2019ll find him on the baseball diamond these days. But my brother\u2019s son, a toddler, is never seen without a soccer ball, displaying an obsession with the sport I never possessed.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Luke, who often drags me to the park after dinner to play. \u201cDaddy, be the goalie,\u201d he pleads. We pretend we\u2019re in the Premier League, or perhaps the World Cup, the name Medley emblazoned on his jersey. He kicks the ball towards me, and in those seconds the ball is airborne, the cheers from when Granddad played echoing through the decades and reaching us now, I think: Maybe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Medley is The Globe and Mail\u2019s Deputy Opinion Editor and author of Live to See the Day:…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":749456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[1397,49,48,561,82],"class_list":["post-749455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-soccer","tag-appwebview","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-soccer","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/749456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}