Battles over the pigskin have been raging in Cloverdale Athletic Park for more than three decades. The popular athletic ground has been home to football since before the first artificial turf field went in.
The Cloverdale Community Football Association (CCFA) has been providing opportunities for kids to play football in the park since 1992.
Yeera Sami, president of the CCFA, said his football association was playing on a grass field at Cloverdale Athletic Park (CAP) for more than a decade before the city changed it over to turf. He said despite being one of the stakeholders, along with soccer and field hockey at the time, they almost didn’t get a football field put in when the changeover occurred 20 years ago.
Nevertheless, Sami said it was the CCFA in the end who was responsible for getting the Canadian Football-sized football field put in at CAP.
“We helped pay for part of it,” said Sami. “We put the money up to cover the two end zones, but it wasn’t going to go in at first.”
As for the reasons CCFA helped pay for part of the football field, Sami said it fell to two: practicality and a love for Cloverdale and sports.
He said when CAP #1 first went in, it was only the second synthetic field in the city after one in Newton. Back then, in 2002, the city promised to bring football into a stakeholders meeting when the field planning process began, but Sami and CCFA didn’t hear from the city—one day trucks just showed up and started tearing up softball diamond #1 and a farmer’s field. (The new field was part of the expansion of CAP.) When the CCFA finally figured out what was going on, they were in shock.
“When I realized they were building an exclusive soccer field, I raised the issue with Parks and Rec.,” remembered Sami. “They said they didn’t have enough money to include football or any other sport in it.”
But Sami was adamant the field was multi-sport and wanted to include field hockey too. He said it was “the right thing to do” for sports in Cloverdale.
Sami said he got nowhere with City of Surrey staffers. Then, after several meetings with the project manager, Sami was told it would cost too much money—$300,000 alone for the underlay—to tack a couple of end zones onto the then exclusive soccer pitch.
Sami then started working the phone. He found a Canadian company, FieldTurf—headquartered in Montreal, that could do the same job for a fraction of the cost. Because of their unique product, FieldTurf did not use a separate, and extremely expensive underlay. At the time, FieldTurf had just put in the new playing surface for the Seattle Seahawks. “If it’s good enough for the NFL, why not Cloverdale?” Sami thought.
He then went to meet with the Parks and Rec. commission. He didn’t get anywhere with the commission either but there were two city councillors on the commission and they told Sami he needed to address mayor and council.
When Sami presented to council, his proposal was well received.
“Mayor and council liked my idea for a multi-sport field,” said Sami. “Once they agreed, they asked if football would pay for the two end zones, and we agreed to pay it.”
The budget for the two end zones? Only about $55,000 for FieldTurf. The CCFA paid it and the Canadian Football-sized field was built.
Today, along with the CCFA, the field is also used by many high schools for Grade 8, junior, and senior football games. Cloverdale’s Lord Tweedsmuir also uses the football field. And teams from Vancouver Island and the Interior use it too. Those teams “meet in the middle” to battle it out in Cloverdale.
