How the not-so-likely lads from Canada scored me my first paid writing gig

This First Person column is written by Alistair Steele, the feature writer and digital copy editor at CBC Ottawa. For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ. 

The very first time someone paid me for writing something, I had just turned 14 and Canada's men's soccer team had just booked their ticket to the 1986 World Cup in Mexico.

As a son of Scottish immigrants growing up in Winnipeg, I was crazy about the game. While most of my friends fell asleep dreaming about a career in the NHL, preferably playing for the Jets, my own ambitions were firmly set on Liverpool F.C., Bayern Munich or whichever European powerhouse had just dazzled me on Soccer Saturday, practically our only window into the game at the time.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, came Bob Lenarduzzi, Carl Valentine, Igor Vrablic and the rest of the plucky Canadian squad to show me that I needn't necessarily look overseas for soccer greatness. There was plenty of promise right here at home.

As a courtesy to the rest of the soccer-playing world, I decided to warn everyone about the coming Canadian threat. The best place to do that, I reasoned, was on the letters page of Roy of the Rovers.

I was introduced to ROTR through my Scottish cousins who would send me their dog-eared back copies. At Christmas there'd always be a glossy annual under the tree. 

It was not what you'd call a "serious" soccer magazine. Really, it was a comic book.

Sure, ROTR contained messages about the importance of teamwork and the scourge of hooliganism, but there was also a character whose only discernible skill was having super-charged arms that could place the ball anywhere from a throw-in, and a boy whose old-fashioned football boots possessed the spirit of