Cec Thompson

Theodore Cecil Thompson (12 July 1926 – 19 July 2011) was an English professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.[1]

Cec Thompson
Personal information
Full nameTheodore Cecil Thompson
Born(1926-07-12)12 July 1926
Durham, England
Died19 July 2011(2011-07-19) (aged 85)
Playing information
PositionWing, second-row, Loose forward
Club
Years Team Pld T G FG P
1948–53 Hunslet 96 9 0 0 27
1953–60 Workington Town 192 55 0 0 165
1960–62 Barrow 2 0 0 0 0
Total 290 64 0 0 192
Representative
Years Team Pld T G FG P
1951 Great Britain 2 0 0 0 0
1951 British Empire XIII 2 0 0 0 0

He was born in County Durham, the son of a mother from Durham, and a Trinidadian father. His father died before he was born.[2][3] With his mother, Florence Greenwell, the daughter of a miner, he soon moved to Leeds. With four children, she struggled and he was fostered at a few months old.[4] His childhood was spent in a succession of orphanages.[1]

Thompson took up rugby league when working near Hunslet. In 1951, the Rugby commentator, Eddie Waring wrote: “If Cec Thompson is not chosen for the Great Britain squad to face New Zealand, the selectors must be racists”.[4] Four years after his potential was spotted by a Hunslet scout, he played for Great Britain in 1951, only the second black player to do so (the first was Roy Fisher).[2] However, his debut in the game with New Zealand was headlined in the Daily Herald as "Hunslet's Darkie one of Britain's heroes."[2] In 1953, he transferred to Workington Town in Cumbria.[3]

All of Thompson's games for Hunslet, and in representative matches were as a second-row. For Workington in Cumbria he played 164 games as a second-row, twenty-two as a positions, and six as a wing.

Cec Thompson played right-second-row, i.e. number 12, in Workington Town's 9–13 defeat by Wigan in the 1958 Challenge Cup Final during the 1957–58 season at Wembley Stadium, London on Saturday 10 May 1958.[5]

At Barrow, with the side plagued by injury, he played two games as a second-row against Bramley and Blackpool Borough, to make up the numbers.[6] In the last two years of his career, he was coach of Barrow becoming the second black coach in the sport. In this, he once more followed the lead of Roy Francis.[2]

He was one of the founders of the Student Rugby League in the United Kingdom, when along with Andrew Cudbertson and Jack Abernathy, he founded a team at the Leeds University in 1967.

Thompson built up his own window cleaning business in Workington, and then qualified to teach Economics with a degree from the University of Leeds, and a teaching diploma. Initially he taught at Dinnington Comprehensive School, and then at Chesterfield Grammar School, where he was head of economics and master in charge of rugby. He received a honorary MA degree from Leeds University in 1994 for services to the community, and the freedom of the borough of Allerdale in the Lake District in 2003.[1][4]

References
  1. "Cec Thompson". The Daily Telegraph. 21 July 2011. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  2. Wilson, Andy (27 July 2011). "Cec Thompson obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  3. Hadfield, Dave (2 August 2011). "Cec Thompson: The first black man to play rugby league for Great Britain". The Independent. Retrieved 20 July 2020.
  4. "Cec Thompson". The Times. 23 July 2020. Retrieved 20 July 2020. (subscription required)
  5. "1957-1958 Challenge Cup Final". wigan.rlfans.com. 31 December 2011. Retrieved 1 January 2012.
  6. Thompson, Cec (14 October 1995) Born on the Wrong Side, The Pentland Press. ISBN 1-85821-339-8
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