Seven of the eight members of the Capital City Football Club that share a house on Gladstone Avenue in the living room in their house.
In a house on Gladstone Avenue live eight professional athletes crammed into four bedrooms with bunk beds, one kitchen, and only one bathroom.
“It’s trouble sometimes because there’s usually a line for the washroom but we have a TV, cable, and enough fridge space,” says Casey Cordray, housemate and teammate of the seven players from Capital City Football Club, Ottawa’s professional soccer team in the Canadian Soccer League.
A far cry from the major league lifestyles with Lamborghinis, team jets, and homes profiled on MTV’s Cribs, Cordray, Junior Ellis, Clint Irwin, Nathaniel Foster, Andre Manders, Collin Harrison, Akil DeFreitas, and Joel Bagby all live in the old red brick house.
“It’s gone pretty smoothly actually, it’s not like living with eight girls,” says Junior Ellis, a midfielder on the team.
The house is filled with soccer gear, laptops, Xbox controllers and even a puzzle-in-progress on the dining room table, but despite the close quarters, the teammates from CCFC say playing in the CSL is still a huge opportunity.
“You get guys who are moving down the soccer ladder and guys like us where this is our first rung and we want to move up,” says Clint Irwin, team captain and goalkeeper for CCFC.
For most players in the house the CSL is providing a platform from which they can jump into bigger and better leagues like Major League Soccer or the European professional ranks.
“The CSL isn’t looking to be the best division in Canada, it’s helping players like us move up into leagues like the MLS,” says Irwin.
Ottawa has given its players extra help by providing housing for the eight men whose only source of income is playing soccer.
“The club set this (house) up for us and I don’t think a lot of other teams do that for their players,” says Cordray.
Everyone is quick to agree that the team has it pretty good thanks to the efforts and organization of owner Neil Malhorta and they have enjoyed living in Ottawa so far.
“I’m not used to this cold but you can walk everywhere here, it’s nothing like that in the U.S.,” says Cordray, who is originally from California.
However, they hope this league is a stepping-stone to something even better.
“You need to start somewhere and for me this is a foot in the door,” says forward Nathaniel Foster.
His housemates agree that the CCFC is providing the perfect opportunity to gain experience and to beef up their professional soccer resumes.
“We wouldn’t be doing it if it was a one- or two-year thing, we want to move on and keep playing,” says Irwin.
For now, however, the team is completely focused on the present as they head into their second game in a two-game aggregate series against the Montreal Impact. They tied their first game 1-1. Now they must win to advance to the semifinals.