Heroes sometimes appear unexpectedly when big games are on the line.

Just about every player on North Shore United’s roster earned hero status at one time or another during the team’s march through the B.C., Western Canada and Canadian soccer championships that culminated with a 2-0 edging of Hamilton Westinghouse in the deciding game of the best-of-three Dominion Football Association finals at Calgary’s Mewata Stadium on Aug. 10, 1949, exactly 60 years ago this week.

While Fred Whittaker was the prolific scorer of 20 of NSU’s 37 goals in 10 playoff games, no less than seven others scored at least once while 11 players were cited as contributing significant assists and a half dozen were singled out for their defensive prowess.

But it was goalkeeper Frank Ashdown who outdid himself game after game to disprove his all-knowing skeptics who figured he wasn’t even of the calibre to play for NSU in B.C.’s top-tier Pacific Coast League, let alone be the team’s saving (pun intended) grace.

And if you wanted a hero or two from the title game itself, you’d need to look over to the sidelines to where North Shore trainer, Joe McCranor, was standing with Frank Porteous, the trainer for the Calgary Stampeders’ football squad. Porteous was there helping the overworked McCranor as North Shore’s injury situation became dire.

The Vancouver Daily Province even began its championship-game story by claiming, “Two men with bandages, tapes and heat lamps, had a lot to do with North Shore United becoming the champion soccer team of Canada.”

It explained, “During the Reds’ stay in Calgary, Frank Porteous, the Stampeders’ trainer slaved to keep injury plagued North Shore team fit for the series. Joe McCranor lost seven pounds and got himself fit as a boxer training for a world fight rubbing down his boys and massaging away their bumps and bruises. And when North Shore went out for their final game last night they were a tribute to the trainers’ art.”

Team captain Tom Cumming, Trev Harvey and Jim Spencer, all North Van City firemen, had played at least 10 years for NSU, the latter two having suited up 11 summers earlier when United first reigned supreme on the Canadian soccer stage in 1938.

All three, with bones a creaking, announced their retirement at the conclusion of the 1949 Dominion series (though Spencer seemed to retire and unretire on an annual basis for years afterwards).

Yet it was the aging Harvey who was called upon to make good on a penalty shot barely two minutes or so into the decisive third game versus Hamilton, following a controversial hand-ball call in the goal area. The Vancouver Sun noted, “Harvey took the kick, carefully dropping it into the upper right hand corner…”

It was the even-older Spencer who engineered the clinching marker after being expertly attended to by the trainers who also mended the unspecified hurts of Dave Brown along with injuries to Ashdown (thumb), Cumming (thigh), Frank Ambler (groin) and Billy Smith (ankle).

“A Spencer corner 23 minutes after the start of the second period,” reported The Province, “brought North Shore’s second goal when Whittaker’s head sent the ball into the net like a bullet…”

That was trademark Whittaker, a scoring machine at centre forward who bent the twine those 20 times, beginning with a pair in a 3-2 victory against Columbia Hotel as B.C. playoffs began.

Whittaker then sent home four in a 5-0 drubbing of Rainer Hotel before adding two versus Vancouver City in the third game of their B.C. final, a 4-2 Reds’ triumph after 30 minutes of overtime. That rubber match followed a 3-2 win and 4-2 loss, the only games in which Whittaker went scoreless.

When United alighted from the train to face Edmonton North Side Legion (victors over Saskatoon for the Prairie title) in the Western Canada best-of-three series, it was Whittaker who notched two in a 4-0 win and five more in a 9-0 pasting.

However, while Whittaker was expected to fill the net at one end via his talented toes and nifty noggin, Ashdown wasn’t trusted – by some critics at least – to keep it empty at the other end.

Some impertinent wag, writing in The Sun under the pen name “Halfback,” was responsible for claiming Ashdown was unworthy of a place between the posts of a Pacific Coast League club.

Maybe that brought out the best in Frank. We’ll never know. Ashdown passed away July 12th.

Ashdown had encouraged his naysayers when he failed to clear a ball properly which resulted in a key goal during the concluding game of the B.C. championships, the only obvious miscue I could find in all the playoff-game stories I meticulously researched in the Province, Sun, News Herald and North Shore Press.

Dick Acaster, the youngest member of the Reds at 18 (George Beckett was 19), still resides in North Van and may be the last surviving team member with Ashdown now gone.

Acaster recalls his teammates with remarkable detail, rattling off all the names, their positions and day jobs back then, and offering lots of tidbits: Stubby McLean “was a real character.” Ukie Grey got his nickname “because he played the ukulele.” Anderson’s nickname was “Hardrock Harry.” Cumming once scored a goal on a kick “all the way from our own penalty area.” Spencer never really retired. “I think he died with his boots on.”

He admits Ashdown was “shaky” at times. But on the way to the title “Ashdown played unreal,” Acaster marvels. “He won it for us. He would throw up before games and then play great. He was unbelievable.”

Newspaper accounts of the day agree as the heroic Ashdown rang up four shutouts in the last five games, receiving rave mention even for the one game they lost.

Acaster tells a story on himself when asked why he’s not in the team photo (above) taken at Calgary’s Palliser Hotel.

“I knew the guys were getting together, but I didn’t know it was going to be a big deal with awards and things. So I went out partying with Greig Bjarnason and Audber French [two former North Van High buddies who were playing football for the Stampeders].

“Boy did [manager Bob] Harrison ever give it to me for that.”

Harrison eventually calmed down and Acaster got his medal (in photo above), proving he was part of that team of young, old and even unexpected heroes.

This is episode 343 from Len Corben’s treasure chest of stories – the great events and the quirky – that bring to life the North Shore’s rich sports history.