Some have dubbed them the odd couple of the Sudbury soccer scene. You’re not going to get any argument from this corner. While John Sikora and Lloyd Rebeiro could not have come from more vastly contrasting backgrounds, their 29 year partnership at St Charles College produced no less than 20 SDSSAA banners. The story below is the second in a two-part look at a pair of individuals whose prominence in the sport locally was a bi-product of a special relationship that extended from the soccer pitch and beyond.

Thank goodness that John Sikora and Lloyd Rebeiro provided such a wonderful contrast throughout their years of involvement with soccer.

By comparison, things were much less cut and dried when it came to trying to navigate your way around the world of the Polish White Eagles soccer crew of the late 1960s and into the seventies.

“Within a stone’s throw of my house, there were four John Sikora’s,” noted the man who would forge such a tight partnership with his fellow teacher (Rebeiro) who emigrated with his family to Canada from Africa.

This John Sikora, who shared the name with his father, thoroughly enjoyed watching the famed White Eagles crew of 1969, the one that would claim an Ontario Cup championship, the one whose primary organizer was also one John Sikora. That one, far more well-known in Sudbury for his very successful jewellery business, also shared the first name of his father.

>Clear as mud? It only gets more befuddling, as our guy hits his teenage years.

“At 15, I resurrected the White Eagles, because there were very little opportunities for a young kid to be playing soccer at the time (1977),” said Sikora, who retired as a teacher from St Charles College in 2016. “It’s not like it is now.”

“We played on the streets or a patch of grass with the kids, but there was nothing organized.”

Having witnessed the greatness of the team emblazoned with the colours of his ancestral lands, Sikora would turn to his namesake, just a few years his elder, for advice on how to kick-start a Polish White Eagles program that had gone dormant for a few years.

“I talked with him, asked what I needed to do to get this going,” said Sikora, one of four children in the Sudbury born and raised family. “I was 15 years old and really didn’t know any better - but I had contacts with the local Polish community, so we ran dances and fundraisers. He (the other John Sikora) helped me get it going, but I had to do a lot of the work myself.”

Even as post-secondary schooling took him out of town, attending the University of Waterloo before earning his Teachers College degree from Brock, Sikora would return to the team that he had helped guide to a second phase of their existence. “They were sponsored by Polish guys, but I think the 1969 team had just one Polish guy on the team,” he said.

“In 1977, we took anybody. Rob Gallo played for us. He couldn’t play for the (Italia) Flyers when he was young, they were too stacked. So all of these young guys played for us. That first year, we got slaughtered.”

While he would continue to play for several years, it was clear that Sikora’s heart was far more into coaching. Ultra competitive soccer was simply not his calling, at least not as a player. “I played forward and midfield, then some defense in my later years,” he suggested. “The odd time, I would play in net, but I was not meant for goalie.”

“In the rec leagues, our goalie wouldn’t show up and I would go in net, but I knew I had a great team in front of me. If I touched the ball, it was because they gave it to me.”

Sikora and Rebeiro would come to know a thing or two about great teams. First crossing paths as Sikora balanced supply teaching stints between both Lasalle Secondary and St Charles College, the tandem really went to work once both were on staff on a full-time basis, at the home of the Cards, in the spring of 1988.

They connected on so many levels.

“Lloyd and I had the same mentality when it came to picking the teams,” said Sikora. “The senior team was the most important, and if you’re good enough to play, you’re going up.”

Where Sikora could immerse himself in the on-field game, Rebeiro would find his own way of establishing the greatness of the SCC soccer program. “Those first few years, there was no money for school sports,” said Sikora. “We had to scramble for everything that we got - and Lloyd was excellent at that.”

“He found a way to get whatever money we needed raised. With that money that he raised, Lloyd would give those kids everything. I sometimes thought it was too much,” added Sikora, with a laugh.

Generally speaking, it was a fitting accompaniment to the on-field excellence, regardless of the site that St Charles students would call home. “In Garson (current Northeastern Public School), it was kind of hard through the winters in that small gym,” said Sikora. “But the kids that we had were playing all the time. We didn’t have to worry about getting them going.”

“When we had our best teams in the nineties, all of those kids were born and raised by soccer people,” he added. “And all of those parents never gave us advice on how to coach their kids - unless I asked. There were a few people that I asked, just because there were some really talented soccer parents.”

In 2012, Sikora would add yet another layer to his involvement with soccer, one which also allowed him to reconnect with the old country. Taking six months off work, he would volunteer as part of the accreditation team of UEFA Euro 2012, the European championships jointly hosted by Poland and the Ukraine.

“I went through the UEFA website and saw that they were looking for volunteers,” said Sikora. “My ability to speak polish and english, that’s what they were looking for.” Four years later, he was in the crowd as Portugal blanked Wales 2-0 in the UEFA Euro 2016 semi-final, sitting in a corner seat with Michael Massimiliano, his father and Rebeiro as Ronaldo sprinted in their direction following an absolutely brilliant goal.

In 2017, Sikora was volunteering with the UEFA European Under-21 playdowns, with yet another highlight two years later, working a few different roles with the FIFA U-19 World Cup.

“The Ukrainians won the whole thing and I had a job working in their dressing room,” he said. “I have so much fun working those events.”

Because in the view of John Sikora, soccer and fun go hand in hand - much in the same way that he and Lloyd Rebeiro will forever be linked to the incredible soccer legacy that exists at St Charles College.