Ronald MacLachlan

Ronnie MacLachlan was born in Montreal, Que. on January 27, 1919, the son of Neil MacLachlan, a Scottish immigrant, and Jessie MacNeil of Glen Sandfield.

He spent his childhood years both in Montreal and visiting on his mother’s family farm. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s, he worked locally on the farm. Shortly after marrying Christena MacLennan of Glen Sandfield, they moved to Montreal where he worked for a toy company and played soccer in the city leagues.

In 1953, they returned to Glen Sandfield raised a family of three fine boys and began a thirty year-year career as mail driver and school bus operator. The first thing Ronnie did in the early 1950’s was to organize a Glen Sandfield team in the Glengarry Soccer League – a team that has been playing for almost 40 years since then. This, however, was only the start to bigger and better things.

In the mid-1950’s, there was no minor soccer in Glengarry. Young men practised with a senior team until they were good enough to win a place. Although the exceptional one or two could make the big team in their early teens, for the vast majority it would mean waiting until they were 18 or 20.

Groups of teenage boys met near McCrimmon for two or three years around 1953 and played exhibition games, but no league existed for them. Around 1958, Gerry Simpson, newly arrived from Scotland and living in Glen Sandfield, Morlin Campbell, and Ronnie began Saturday afternoon scrimmages at the Lochiel Soccer Field for boys about 10 to 13 years of age. Father Gauthier often came out to watch the proceedings.

These informal gatherings with an old soccer ball and makeshift nets marked the birth of minor soccer in this area. The next year, one minor age group was established and it grew so fast that within five years the Glengarry Soccer League had peewee, junior, and intermediate boys’ divisions. The girls began in the mid-1960’s, and today the league has five men’s and women’s categories and one mixed for children seven and under.

What the league needed in the formative years were dedicated and hardworking organizers in the local areas to get teams organized and outfitted. Players had to be registered, coaches obtained, balls and sweaters purchased and meetings attended.

At the forefront in those years was Ronnie MacLachlan. Ronnie always ensured that there were players for the various new age groups, no small feat when one considers that Glen Sandfield in no way compares to Alexandria in size.

However, without fail, he could always be counted on to field a team and instill in his players the same high level of dedication and honor that he himself held high.

Getting players for the teams was not a problem if the parents were interested and could drive the kids, but for years Ronnie would phone players who he felt might enjoy learning the game, register them at their home if they could not make it out, drive them to games with his bus, organize raffles to raise money for sweaters and balls (in the days when five dollars was a lot of money), attend board of directors meetings and draw up league schedules (and remake them if storms cause cancellations).

Morlin Champbell tells the story about meeting with Ronnie at the Lochiel Soccer Field every Sunday afternoon for an entire summer when a long period of inclement weather forced repeated cancellation of games, and the schedule had to be reworked. He would arrange for coaches, but if none volunteered, he would take on the job. One year he coached four different teams, just so the young of the area would not be let down. His home was a registration point for hundreds of players every year. A lot of children – and now their children – are benefiting from his hard work and perseverance.

Beside him all those years was his wife of 50 years, Christena, who has been an unending source of support for him. Minor soccer would not be what it is today with his work over the past 35 years.

There are those in the world who will never take a chance, never organize unless they are personally involved in the enjoyment, who never want to get the “ball rolling.” Ronnie is not one of these. He was a hard worker who put the game and enjoyment by children before himself.