Jeff Cross

Jeffrey Arthur Cross... soccer family (son Tim Cross, son-in-law Brian Robinson)... moved from England to Canada in 1952... married his wife Barbara on 4 July 1953 (they raised children Tim and Hilary)... he was 92 years old when he passed away on 14 February 2016... he was 18 years old when he was called into the Royal Navy as a radio operator in September 1942... worked 48 years in the newspaper business starting with the Manchester City News (1946) and then Yorkshire Evening News (1947) in England... worked for the British Columbian in New Westminster (starting in 1952, first as general news reporter and eventually sports editor)... worked 32 years for The Province newspaper in Vancouver (from 1956 to 1989, starting in politics, then music, then in sports on the soccer and golf beat after Austin Delany’s death in 1958 and later also ice skating)... also served as a soccer analyst for television (BCTV) and radio...

in 1973, authored a biography on Karen Magnusses entitled “Karen”... in 1999, served on The Soccer Hall of Fame’s first selection committee that voted on 11 players and 11 builders for the inaugural Class of 2000...

honoured by the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame... posthumously honoured by the Soccer Hall of Fame of British Columbia...

wrote Cross in 1980, “I’m doing the colour for Whitecaps TV and when they’re on the west coast, I literally have to run from TV booth to pressbox to file for the Province deadline. Usually I’m in need of considerable refreshment when I’m all through”...

wrote Cross in 1989, “forty-nine years in the newspaper business (less four at His Majesty’s pleasure during WW2) is a lot of ink over the rollers”... said Bob Lenarduzzi in 2016, "Jeff was the dean of soccer in BC, having the most knowledge of the sport and whose work was the standard of balanced and professional sports reporting. As a kid, I always looked forward to his regular ‘Whirl Around the World’ column with updates from different leagues, which was ahead of its time given the limitations of reporting then. He was instrumental in building the profile of the sport in the province”...