Allison Bell-Davies, Cape Breton University

Women’s Soccer

She got knocked down, but she got up again. And again. And again. Allison Bell-Davies’s soccer career has been a turbulent one to say the least. 

The mishap-prone fifth-year Psychology student, originally from Pickering, Ontario, admits that her soccer career even began by accident. “I started playing soccer when I was about six years old, and it was only because I had missed tee ball registration that summer,” says Bell-Davies.

It soon became evident that this had actually been a stroke of luck when Bell-Davies found herself playing provincial soccer at the young age of nine. From 13 to 17, she played for Team Ontario, and eventually went on to train with the National Training Camp.

At a high school soccer tournament, Bell-Davies was scouted by CBU head coach Stephen “Ness” Timmons. “I remember talking to him and thinking that he had such a presence and a huge personality and that going to CBU would be the right decision if it meant I was going to be coached by someone who [had] made such an impact on me within 10 minutes [of meeting me],” she says.

A promising young talent, Bell-Davies was already getting playing time in the first games of the season in her very first year with the team. It was in just the second game of the season that lightning struck for the first time. With just two minutes to go in their game against Dalhousie, Bell-Davies took a nasty fall.

“I remember being on the sideline running to receive a pass and just feeling my leg twist and give out and the next moment I’m on my back looking up at my trainer asking me if I was alright,” she says. She had torn the ACL in her left knee.

She began rehab after surgery to repair the knee in November, hoping to be ready to play again by the beginning of the following season. She joined a summer league as something of a trial run and, in her very first game back, tore the ACL in her left knee for a second time.

A second surgery was scheduled for July of that year. But more misfortune followed. “One morning about two weeks after the surgery, I woke up to a searing pain and saw my knee had blown up to the size of a large cantaloupe,” she recalls. The knee was infected.

Two months of antibiotics administered every two hours via IV followed. “It was a long two months,” says Bell-Davies. The following year, she attempted to play briefly, but found that her body simply wasn’t ready. “I took what playing time I could get, but focused on training harder than ever for the next season.”

Playing in a league that summer, things were finally looking up for Bell-Davies. But, her string of bad luck was not quite over. “A couple of weeks before my return to school, I tore the ACL in my right leg this time,” says Bell-Davies. “I had finally reached my limit.” She decided to take a year off and focus on school.

This 2011-2012 academic year will be Bell-Davies’s fifth at CBU. “Coming into [this] year, I told myself that no matter what happen[ed], I had to give it one last chance,” she says. Three torn ACL’s later, Bell-Davies tried out for, and made, the CBU women’s soccer team yet again.

“I couldn’t believe after so many years, I was back on the squad,” she says. And not only did she make the team, but she was getting playing time as well. “I never expected much playing time. Just making the team had been reward enough for me.”

“Stepping onto the field gave me such a rush and hearing our amazing fans cheering and supporting me shook me of my nerves and gave me such a feeling of pride and happiness for being able to make it to this point,” says Bell-Davies.

The ever-persistent athlete has big hopes for her team this season. “I’m hoping for a winning season that results in bringing home another AUS banner, then going to Montreal and reclaiming the National champions title that the team battled fiercely to win four years ago,” she says.

And with all she’s overcome, her dream of a big win seems not only commendable, but perfectly plausible. “This is never an easy road. But, our team loves obstacles and challenging ourselves to overcome them.”

If Bell-Davies herself is any indication, AUS varsity women’s soccer had better keep an eye out this season for the Cape Breton University Capers.