Tom Holland

Tom Holland... football family (father Daniel Holland, brothers R.S. Holland and John Holland, son-in-law George Singleton)... he married his wife Frances Isabelle McIntyre on 24 August 1905 (? or 1916)... he was 32 years old when he moved to Canada... he was 66 years old when he passed away in Toronto on 22 April 1947... worked as a solicitor’s managing clerk... worked alongside his father with the North West of Ireland Football Association (Tom served as secretary; his father served as a director and referee)... in Toronto, worked as a notary and claims adjustor... worked for Toronto Transit Commission...

served as the ninth President of the Dominion of Canada Football Association (1931-32)... in 2000, one of 14 alternate builders shortlisted by The Soccer Hall of Fame... honoured as a Canada Soccer Life Member...

the Tom Holland Memorial Award was created in his honour, awarded annually to the Toronto and District Football Association’s most outstanding player...

from the Dominion of Canada Football Association’s 1925 Annual Meeting, he submitted the recommendation that the “new sterling trophy presented by the F.A. of England be the trophy emblematic of the Dominion Championship, the series for the Championship to be known as the Connaught Series”... as noted in 1932 in the Toronto Star, he “has done a lot to put the game on the map in a big way and soccer followers will regret his decision” to retire... wrote Willis Entwistle in 1944, “Tom figured prominently in the rise of Ulster United to one of the finest teams in eastern Canada”... as noted in his Globe & Mail obituary in 1947, “it has been said his was the finest legislative mind in Canadian soccer and this was borne out time and again by the numerous times he was called upon to help clubs out of a scrape”... also noted by The Globe & Mail in 1947, “a friend of Toronto mayors back to the time of Tommy Church, he was a well-known figure around City Hall and his friendship with members of city council was put to good use in behalf of sport in the city”... said Mayor Robert Saunders in 1947, “the death of Tom Holland is a great loss to the City of Toronto, to sport in general, and to soccer in particular”...