Durham Flames were a semi-professional

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

club based in

Oshawa Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the G ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...

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. The club competed in the Canadian Professional Soccer League for five seasons from 1999 to 2003.

Background

Durham Flames ''(previously known as Oshawa Flames)'' played in the Canadian Professional Soccer League which is the third tier of Canadian football pyramid. The club was founded in 1999 and played their home matches at the

Oshawa Civic Stadium The Oshawa Civic Auditorium was an indoor arena in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada. It operated from 1964 to 2006, and was primarily used as an ice hockey venue for the Oshawa Generals. The auditorium was built as a replacement to the Hambly Arena, whic ...

. The stadium is able to accommodate 2,000 spectators. The club was affiliated to the

Canadian Soccer Association The Canadian Soccer Association (Canada Soccer) is the governing body of soccer in Canada. It is a national organization that oversees the Canadian men's and women's national teams for international play, as well as the respective junior sides ( ...

History

Durham Flames were originally known as Oshawa Flames and first entered the Canadian Professional Soccer League in

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shootin ...

, as a replacement for the Mississauga Eagles. The club's first head coach was

CSL CSL as an abbreviation may stand for: Places * Coordinated Science Laboratory, at the University of Illinois * Liège Space Center (Centre spatial de Liège), at the University of Liege in Belgium * Central Science Laboratory, a former UK DEFRA ...

and APSL veteran

Jens Kraemer Jens Kraemer (born July 14, 1963) is a Canadian former soccer player and head coach who is currently the head coach for the semi-professional club Darby. Playing career Kraemer began his career in 1980 in the National Soccer League with Londo ...

. Notable acquisition were

Darryl Gomez Darryl Gomez (born October 21, 1977) is a Trinidadian-Kittitian former footballer and manager. Gomez began playing football at the college level in 1996 with the Winthrop Eagles. After his completing his scholarship in 2000 he played in the USL A- ...

, Pat Sullivan, and

Hubert Busby, Jr. Hubert Busby Junior (born 18 June 1970) is a Canadian-born Jamaican football manager and former player. Playing career In 1993, Busby Jr. played in the Canadian National Soccer League with Windsor Wheels. As a player, Busby Jr. spent time with ...

The club finished in fifth position and reached the semi-finals of the League Cup before going out 2-0 on aggregate to

Toronto Croatia Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anchor ...

, the second match proving decisive at

Centennial Park Stadium Centennial Park Stadium is a 2,200 seat capacity stadium in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is primarily used for soccer, track and field, football and occasionally for kabaddi. The park is also used for the ROPSSAA football finals and the PSAA (Pr ...

. The following season the team hired the services of

Durham College Durham College of Applied Arts and Technology is located in the Durham Region The Regional Municipality of Durham (), informally referred to as Durham Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada. Located east of Toronto a ...

head coach Stan Bombino to coach the team. Bombino led Durham to a seventh-place finish which reflected the fact that they drew 9 of their 14 matches. Jimmy Kuzmanovski was the club's top goal-scorer with 9 league and cup goals. At the conclusion of the season Kuzmanovski was awarded the CPSL Rookie of the Year award. Under their new title of Durham Flames, and under the leadership of Danny Stewart the club again failed to reach the championship playoffs in the

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

and

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

seasons. Though Durham failed to reach the postseason they received the CPSL Fair Play award in 2001. In their final season in

2003 File:2003 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The crew of STS-107 perished when the Space Shuttle Columbia disintegrated during reentry into Earth's atmosphere; SARS became an epidemic in China, and was a precursor to SARS-CoV-2; A des ...

in the Eastern Conference the club struggled, winning just one of their 18 league matches. This contrasted with their performance in the

Open Canada Cup The Open Canada Cup was an annual knock-out cup competition in Canadian Soccer. The competition was first held during the 1998 season as the CPSL League Cup. It was organized by the Canadian Soccer League (formerly the Canadian Professional So ...

when they reached the Cup Final weekend before losing 4-1 to London City in a wild card game on 29 August 2003. The Flames last ever match was played on 30 September 2003 when they went down 3-1 away to

Vaughan Sun Devils The Glen Shields Sun Devils were a soccer team which played in the Canadian Soccer League, Canadian Professional Soccer League from 1998–2002. They played their home matches in Thornhill, Ontario. The franchise was one of the original teams of ...

. On October 5, 2003 the organization was awarded their second CPSL Fair Play award for being the most disciplined team. It was reported in the local press that The Flames were excluded from the League in December 2003, their franchise having been revoked following their failure to pay league fees and fines.

Durham Storm The Durham Storm were a Canadian soccer team that last played in the Canadian Professional Soccer League (CPSL) in 2005. The club was founded as the Toronto Olympians in 1998 and played in Toronto, Ontario through 2001, before being renamed th ...

took over their slot for home games in Oshawa's Civic Stadium on Friday nights. However The Storm bought the

Mississauga Olympians Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...

franchise and did not take over the Durham Flames franchise.

Season to season

First team squad 2003

''The following players represented Durham Flames in their final season:''

Club administration 2003

The key officials of the club during the last season were: *Steve Kralj - President *Carlos De sousa - Vice President *Frank Kralj - Treasurer *Stan Bombino - Technical Director *Jack Methven - Manager *Steve Hamill - Head Coach *Tony Cabral - Assistant Coach *Matt Gurr - Goalkeeper Coach

Head coaches

Footnotes

{{Canadian Soccer League Canadian Soccer League (1998–present) teams Defunct soccer clubs in Canada Soccer clubs in Ontario Sport in Oshawa Association football clubs established in 1999 Association football clubs disestablished in 2003 1999 establishments in Ontario 2003 disestablishments in Ontario