Beautiful game, beautiful life

Ralph Cantafio was a humble man.

Oh, sure, he was on a first-name basis with premiers and prime ministers, who often visited his Corydon Avenue tailor’s shop just to chat. And it was common for soccer legends like Bob Lenarduzzi to call him up and ask for advice or talk about the current state of the beautiful game.

Despite rubbing elbows with countless famous and influential figures, Cantafio remained the same modest individual who left Italy in 1950 to start a new life in Winnipeg. And what a remarkable life it turned out to be, one that included operating one of the city’s most well-known tailor shops, owning the city’s first professional men’s soccer team and serving as a pillar of the local Italian Canadian community for several decades.

While all of that might have given others a swollen head, not so with Cantafio. Throughout his life, he displayed an uncanny ability to connect with others, regardless of their status or stature.

“He always gave you that courage to say, they’re not better than you. You’re a human being, too. Just go and be who you’re gonna be and be the best at it, be honest about it. That was probably the best lesson that I took from Ralph,” says Tony Nocita, who first got to know Cantafio during his youth soccer days and later played for Cantafio-owned Winnipeg Fury of the Canadian Soccer League.

“Anywhere he went, it didn’t matter who it was — people would come to shake his hand. It wasn’t the other way around. That’s why I hold him so dear. He was such a great man because he never thought he was bigger or better than anybody. He just wanted to be trusted and respected.”

Cantafio was born June 22, 1928, in Amato, a town located in the Calabria region of southern Italy. He grew up there during the Second World War with his parents, Domenico and Maria, and siblings Guido, Tony and Giovanino.

After his father died in battle, he moved to Rome in 1948, where he apprenticed as a tailor. Two years later, at his mother’s urging, he decided to join his sister in Canada. There was a catch: Canada was looking for farm workers at the time, not tailors, which meant he had to get a little creative when it came time to meet with Canadian immigration officials.

“He told me this story about how he had to rough up his hands because he had the hands of a tailor, but he had to show them he was a farmer,” recalls his son Raff. “He ended up falsifying (his documents) and using sandpaper on his hands to build up calluses so they would believe he was farming.”

The strategy worked and a few days later he boarded a ship destined for Canada. Nine days later he arrived in Halifax and hopped on a train bound for Montreal, where his sister was living. It was during that train trip that he was struck by the enormity of his new home.

After a brief stopover to visit his sister in Montreal, he continued on to his final destination of Winnipeg where he arrived just in time for the 1950 Red River flood that destroyed thousands of homes and buildings.

“He spent all this time on a boat and all this time on a train, and he gets here and Winnipeg’s underwater, and he’s thinking, ‘Oh my god, I just left Rome, the centre of civilization, to come to this’?” Raff says, chuckling.

Despite the inauspicious start, Cantafio quickly came to love his new home.

It’s where he soon met the love of his life, Elvira, whom he married July 19, 1952, and remained with until his death on March 9 of this year. They raised three kids together: Raff and his two sisters, Caroline and Mary.

It was about the same time he started his own business, Ralph’s Custom Tailors, on the corner of Corydon Avenue and Wilton Street.

Cantafio quickly earned a reputation for his artistry with a bolt of fabric. But the shop was more than just a business. It became a community hub where people from all walks of life would gather to discuss the day’s events, and Cantafio was its congenial host.

“It was a place of friendship and camaraderie. It was kind of like a coffee shop. You weren’t just going there to get something done. You were also there for a visit,” recalls Raff, who often helped out at the shop as a kid.

The list of visitors to Cantafio’s shop was legendary. Former Winnipeg Jets GM John Ferguson lived nearby and often popped in. So did many prominent doctors, lawyers and judges. Former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon was a frequent guest.

Nocita still remembers the time he paid the man he calls his “dear friend” a visit and a black limousine pulled up outside his shop. Who should step out but former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who was in town and wanted to stop in and say hello to his friend Ralph.

“Ralph commanded the respect of all those people. He proved that you just have to be a good human being, be honest and truthful, and you can speak to anybody and they’ll respect you,” he says.

While there was nothing more important to Cantafio than family and friends, his life’s passion was soccer. It was a love affair that was ignited growing up in Italy where he was an ardent supporter of Inter Milan and it continued to burn brightly after he landed in Canada.

In 1953, he founded Ital-Inter, an Italian-Canadian team that would become a powerhouse on the local senior men’s amateur soccer scene for decades. The success he enjoyed as the team’s owner led to him being invited to attend a meeting with the CSL’s board of governors when they were looking to add a franchise in Winnipeg in the mid-1980s.

Although many in the soccer community thought Winnipeg wasn’t a good fit for pro soccer, Cantafio believed otherwise. He founded the Winnipeg Fury and served as team president for the squad that would go on to play six seasons in the CSL beginning in 1987 and another in the Canadian National Soccer League in 1993.

“Everybody in Winnipeg said, it will never happen. It’s too difficult. The thing is, you don’t say that to my dad. I think he (bought the team) to spite everybody who were the naysayers,” Raff says, laughing.

Cantafio’s crowning achievement as owner of the Fury was when his club won the CSL’s Mita Cup championship by defeating the four-time defending champion Vancouver 86ers 3-1 in a two-game aggregate series.

“Aside from his grandkids being born, I would say that was probably one of the best things that ever happened to him,” his son says.

“He was immensely proud, he was proud of the community. He was so proud to be a Winnipegger. It was such an accomplishment for the city. It was massive.”

Cantafio’s contributions to the game extended beyond the pro ranks. He served on multiple boards and committees with both the Manitoba Soccer Association and the Canadian Soccer Association. His lifelong commitment to the sport earned him inductions into the Manitoba Sports Hall of Fame and the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame.

His enduring influence on the local soccer scene was recognized in 2016 when the Winnipeg Soccer Complex on Waverley Street was renamed Ralph Cantafio Soccer Complex in honour of the man many regard as Winnipeg’s father of modern soccer.

“Dad never did anything for a pat on the back. He did it because he was passionate about it,” Raff says.

“He was enormously flattered by (the honours). He wasn’t dumb to how much he accomplished. But it was almost with a shrug of his shoulders. He wouldn’t have expected anything else from himself.”

fpcity@freepress.mb.ca