Green is more than the colour of the field in Island soccer. It is also the hue of its most historic club.

Vic West FC, established in 1896 and the longest-existing club in Canada, is being inducted into the Canadian Soccer Hall of Fame with the Class of 2012.

Only two other clubs have been inducted in the Organization of Distinction category. Toronto Ulster United was the most decorated Canadian team from 1914 to 1939 and the Vancouver Firefighters won four national championships and nine B.C. titles. Single-season achievement is honoured in the Team of Distinction category and includes the 1986 Canadian World Cup squad, 1979 NASL champion Vancouver Whitecaps, 1928 New Westminster Royals and 1904 Olympic-champion Galt FC.

Vic West has won six B.C. titles, four Canadian championships, 19 Jackson Cups, two women’s Doug Day Cups and produced a World Cup player in Jamie Lowery. Other Vic West players who have played for Canada or professionally or shone in other ways include John McGuire, Bob Duncan, Ike McKay, Garnet Moen, Dallas Moen, Bob Fleming, Rick Jasken, Carlos Almeida, Iain Baird, Rob Williams, David Ravenhill, Frank Woods and Steve Forslund.

Vic West will be enshrined during the 2012 induction ceremonies in May in Ottawa. The club joins an Island pantheon in the Canadian Soccer Hall that includes former pros and capped Canadian internationals Ian Bridge, Bob Bolitho, Brian Robinson and other Canuck luminaries of the sport such as Bob Lenarduzzi, Carl Valentine, Buzz Parsons, Bruce Wilson, Craig Forrest and Tony Waiters.

“This is fantastic news. There has always been pride in the Vic West name,” said Dave Unwin, whose book From The Sidelines, about the history of Island soccer, was published in 1996 during the Vic West centenary.

“So many people have built up the Vic West name and kept it going over 116 years that it just couldn’t die,” added Unwin, a former player, coach, manager and president with Vic West.

Current club president Dave Knowles said people coming into the Vic West clubhouse on Tennyson Ave. have been floating on air since the Hall of Fame announcement.

“Everybody is thrilled to death and can’t believe it around the clubhouse,” he said. “This club has always been extremely proud of its history. From all documented accounts, there is no older soccer club in Canada.”

Vic West currently fields a total of 14 men’s and women’s teams. After a dip of nearly a decade on the men’s side, Vic West is back this season in the Vancouver Island Soccer League’s First Division. Perhaps fittingly, that flagship Vic West side wears throwback retro jerseys from the club’s glory years.

“The players love wearing them because they love looking at those old pictures [of former Vic West teams] on the walls of the clubhouse,” said Knowles.

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