Article content continued

“Every Saturday I’d wake up and watch the Prem with my dad.” Haworth said. “Everyone in the family used to kick a ball around. Nothing was ever forced on me.”

He was on a team by age five, on a competitive travelling team at eight and coached by his dad until he was 18.

His first big disappointment came when he was cut from the Ontario U-14s because he was too small. It happened again the following year. “Come back when you have grown and are stronger,” he was told. But he wasn’t ready to give up.

He had hoped to be spotted by a U.S. college but it was slow in coming so he started sending out letters, videos, anything to attract attention. And Niagara University, across the Falls beside Buffalo, came calling.

“I was there four years and played every single day at a higher level,” he said, scoring 35 goals and had 21 assists in 73 games and attracting attention.

While at Niagara he also played with Forest City of the USL Professional Development League. And he was asked to join the Canadian University team at the World University Games in China in 2011.

That prompted attention from the Canadian U-23 coaches and very soon he was off to the Olympic qualifying tournament along with Drew Beckie and Phil Davies current Fury teammates.

All this attention caught the eye of the Montreal Impact, but initial hopes were dashed.

So he returned London. “I admit I did have thoughts about quitting then,” he says now. Half a season with London and leading the club to the PDL North American title put a spring back in his step that took him to Harrisburgh City Islanders of the USL.