STEINER: A Soccer Love - Life, Loss, Whitecaps and a lesson between the chalk
My head presses against the side of the grey 1999 Jeep Cherokee, melting the frost on an early winter morning. I sit on the right side of the backseat, because he can hear me better. An hour later, he’s shouting “heels on the chalk,” and “find the space.”
It is a Saturday, there’s an already cold coffee in the cup holder, and a scrambled edition of Soccernomics and the New Yorker Magazine on the front seat. Hamish Cameron, my step-grandfather, is bundled up, driving me to a match in North Vancouver, where we arrive at frozen turf.
I’m 10. It’s so cold your breath almost freezes in front of you, but he’s there. It’s football, of course, he would be.
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My Grandad taught me plenty of lessons, but two stood out. Get your feet on the chalk, and watch the spaces–– and bring a change of clothes.
I was a left midfielder throughout youth soccer, and his love for the game in Canada got me into the sport. I just wish he were here to see where it's come and where it will be with the FIFA World Cup 2026.
A native of Qualicum Beach, BC, with Scottish roots, he fixated on football. He recalled elementary school games on Vancouver Island as RCAF planes from a nearby military base soared overhead, and missing a penalty kick while trying out for the University of British Columbia varsity team.
When he left his competitive career, which saw him appear once for the heavily supported Vancouver St. Andrews of the Pacific Coast League, he left his boots in the middle of the park and stepped away from competitive soccer for good.
But the love never left. I think he was 82 when he played his final match in a pickup game on Hornby Island, with his sons and grandchildren.
From his footballing romance, he passed down the love to those around him and with me, attended nearly every Whitecaps game from 2011 until 2019, when I left for Toronto. He remains a season ticket holder, even though he’s not around to see it.
As he aged, matches went from him taking me as a reward for multiplication pop quizzes to me pushing his wheelchair through the Vancouver Southsiders supporters group, but letting him waddle to his same seats until the end.
On March 8, 2025, he saw the Whitecaps beat CF Montréal 2–0 in a match in which Scottish midfielder Ryan Gauld suffered a nearly season-ending injury.
A month later, on April 8, he died peacefully in his sleep, missing out on seeing the 2025 Whitecaps run to the Concacaf Champions Cup final, winning the Canadian Championship, signing Thomas Müller and advancing to MLS Cup.
💙Yesterday, I held my Grandad’s arm as he passed away at 92.
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) April 9, 2025
After my mom died when I was 3, he basically filled that role in my life.
From getting me into sports, all the homework help, and being there whenever I needed him — he was my everything.
We held @WhitecapsFC dearly… pic.twitter.com/km5t6C14y7
“We had ice cream cake... you can’t beat that, but you could beat that with a couple of goals and wins at BC Place ” he told Whitecaps legend Carl Valentine in 2014, who called him to wish him happy birthday, while recalling the 1979 NASL soccer bowl. “[1979] was a great year and we’re looking forward to another great year anytime soon and we’re hoping for it in the next few years.
Well, that year has arrived.
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There are no guarantees in football, and no set path for players to follow. Hamish, though, made a guarantee– he would die, he explained it to me as a youngster eating donuts as a stop when we walked home from elementary school.
It’s a fact nobody ever really can confront: the idea that someone fit and healthy in front of them will one day no longer be there. Yet, somehow, it grounded things.
Happiest for him. ❤️
— Ben Steiner (@BenSteiner00) November 30, 2025
Whitecaps to MLS Cup with Thomas Müller, their third final of 2025. https://t.co/0ZY9uHl5YV pic.twitter.com/jevTf9tM6g
From our cold, wet drivers to matches, to goals, penalty kicks and camping trips and other moments, I learned plenty, and still find him within soccer.
In U16, I switched to play goalkeeper. In a rare Friday night match, I stopped a penalty and let out a celebratory shout, only to look to him and see him urging me to get on with the play.
Always focus, move forward, and don’t get caught in a moment for too long, but embrace doing things with those closest to you. Football tactics, in some ways, but an approach to humanity.
The Whitecaps–his Whitecaps–are in MLS Cup; they’ve reached the summit. Soon enough, the anticipation of the moment will be over, and the result will live on in an unrelenting emotion.
Hamish always yearned for it, and although he and plenty of other past diehards won’t be there to see it; their love lives on through the game.
There aren’t many people who write their own obituary, and even fewer who mention a football team– that was Hamish. He wanted the last word, and boy, would he have loved to see this Whitecaps season and city’s embrace of the club.
“Hamish Cameron was a builder of rafts, paper hats, and privies in the wild,” he wrote. “He read and recommended books, plays, and poetry. He was devoted to The New Yorker, John Updike, and the Vancouver Whitecaps. He did things for you, but the true source of the love felt for him was that he did things with you.”
(All photos via Ben Steiner)
