Dave Thomas in 2009 Re QPR Vs Everton in Helping Ex- Players

[QPR Report]

Edit another year: Dave Thomas Turns 63

[QPR Report]

Edit:

Turning Sixty-Three Today: Dave Thomas

Was at Loftus Road for his QPR debut vs Sunderland

Born October 5, 1950 Gordon Jago signed 21-year old/England U-21 International, Dave Thomas almost exactly thirty-five years ago, (late October 1972) from Burnley for what was then a record fee for a Second Division Club: 165,000 pounds (and a time when the biggest transfer fee paid by an English club was around 250,000 pounds!)

(Thomas had been described as "the best young player in Europe" and seemed a bargain signing. Known for not wearing shin pads/socks down to the ankles)

Thomas was signed to replace QPR midfielder, Martyn Busby who very sadly broke his leg in a game at Fulham. Originally played in midfield, was switched to the wing and was a key player for QPR in their "Championship" season in 1975-1976. Thomas also played 8 times for England. Was crazily transferred to Everton in August 1977 for around 200,000 pounds. Played approaching 200 league games, scoring 28 goals.

See Wikipedia Stats - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Thomas_(footballer_born_1950)

[QPR Report]

[petersfieldhoop]

A true legend! He used to be my old Football coach at Bishop Luffa in Chichester!! A great guy!!

[cpr]

Happy Birthday DT, great player, loved him. ;D

Welcome Petersfield. ;D

[Zamoraaaah]

Welcome Petersfield
Did all of the Bishop Luffa team play with their socks rolled down?

Happy Birthday Dave, one of the greatest R's of all time.

[scarletpimple]

Happy birthday Dave, one of the few QPR immortals.

[Lonegunmen]

One of my most favourite of QPR players, Ticer was a gem on the field. Happy Birthday.

[QPR Report]

Agree...And not just a great player about whom almost no one says a bad word. But at the time of his signing: Such a brilliant signing/such a bold statement by a truly-forward looking QPR under Jago and Gregory. - None of this making a signing and then trying to sell him as something other than what he was.

Thomas at the time of his signing had been labeled "The Best Young Player in Europe" - And a record QPR and Dvision Two Transfer record (just 35,000 pounds less than we received for Marsh six months earlier)

[Lonegunmen]

If I remember correctly, he passed his medical too!

[Macmoish]

Happy BIrthday to possibly our geatest-ever winger

[Macmoish]

Sadly though...

articlere Dave Thomas' Eyesite from July of this year

Nice piece re Northern League Team, West Auckland, and Former QPR Winger, from there, Dave Thomas (who the article notes has Glucoma and is legally blind.
Independent/Simon Turnbull - When West Auckland ruled the world... twice

They finished 16th in the Northern League last season but a century ago the County Durham village pitmen put Europe's professionals in their place
- These are not exactly the best of times for West Auckland Town Football Club. They finished 16th in the First Division of the Northern League last season, below the likes of Billingham Synthonia, Norton and Stockton Ancients, Bedlington Terriers and West Allotment Celtic. Still, unlike the English national team, they have won the World Cup twice – or the Sir Thomas Lipton World Football Trophy, as the forerunner of today's global competition was known.

- How a village team from County Durham came to lift the Lipton Trophy as England's representatives in an international tournament in Turin in 1909 was told on the small screen in 1982 in The World Cup: A Captain's Tale. The Tyne Tees TV dramatisation featured Dennis Waterman in the starring role of Bob Jones, who led his team of fellow pitmen to victory ahead of professional clubs chosen to represent Italy (Torino), Germany (Stuttgart Sportfreunde) and Switzerland (FC Winterthur).

- The West Auckland players had to pawn furniture and wedding rings to pay for the trip to northern Italy. They returned in 1911, thrashing Juventus 6-1 in the final. As two-time winners, they were allowed to keep the magnificent Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. It was stolen in 1994 but a replica stands on display at West Auckland Workingmen's Club.
- "It's an amazing story, quite unique," says Dave Thomas, taking a break from fishing by the banks of the River Test in Hampshire. "I'm very proud of my family's history in it." Thomas is a West Auckland lad, one of two notable right wingers to come from the village in the rural Wear Valley. The other was Sir Anthony Eden, Winston Churchill's successor as Conservative Prime Minister in 1955.

- Thomas won eight caps for England as a twinkle-toed right winger. He made an instant impact on his debut, delivering a pin-point cross for Mick Channon to score in a 3-0 win against Czechoslovakia at Wembley in October 1974, the first game of Don Revie's reign as England manager. Thomas had made his top-flight debut for Burnley at 16, was one of the stars of the classy Queens Park Rangers team pipped to the title by a solitary Liverpool point in 1976, and also played for Everton, Wolves, Vancouver Whitecaps, Middlesbrough and Portsmouth. He never got to play in the World Cup finals but his beloved grandfather and namesake was one of the West Auckland World Cup heroes.

- David Rhys Thomas – or "Ticer" Thomas, as he was known – was a tough, skilful wing-half who made such an impression when the part-timers won the inaugural Lipton Trophy that he was offered a coaching job in Italy. He was portrayed in A Captain's Tale by David Bradley, who had played the boy Billy Casper in Kes.
- Quite how Ticer Thomas and a team lying third from bottom of the Northern League table came to represent England in 1909 is not entirely certain. It was the Glasgow-born tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton who had the idea of staging a world football tournament in Italy, 21 years before the launch of the official World Cup. He had hoped that Woolwich Arsenal would represent England but when the Football Association refused to allow any clubs to take part, he turned to the WA of West Auckland instead – in all probability because one of his employees was friendly with a referee in the Northern League.

- "I grew up hearing tales about how West Auckland won the World Cup," Dave Thomas says. "My grandad was a wonderful man. I was very close to him. He lived with us in West Auckland, in the same house where my mam and dad still live today. He used to watch me play and he always said to my mam and dad, 'He'll play for England.' Sadly, he didn't live to see it happen. I was 13 when he died."

- Dave Thomas is 59 now, still fit and sprightly in his retirement from PE teaching, despite suffering from glaucoma and being registered blind. A father of two and grandfather of four, he now lives in West Sussex with his wife Brenda, with whom he has taken enthusiastically to the sport of carriage driving – not exactly a common pastime for a former professional footballer. "We absolutely love it," he says.

- Ticer Thomas's grandson cannot say that he won the World Cup, or a version of it, but he did score the winner against West Germany at Wembley in 1966. "That's right," he says. "For England schoolboys. I'll never forget the date: 30 April 1966. There were 90,000 at Wembley and I was fortunate enough to get the winning goal. We beat West Germany 2-1. I never thought then that England would win the World Cup final against the same country in the same stadium three months later." Independent
qprreport.blogspot.com/2010/07/qpr-report-sunday-snippets.html

[Macmoish]

And a great QPRNet Q&A with Dave Thomas (from about a couple of years ago - Something which we've been talking about on this board) - and it's obviously not the current QPR or the previous QPR board alone. It's been consistent.

One excerpt here:

"....The only thing I’d criticise QPR for these days is how they treat players after they’ve retired. Burnley and Everton are fantastic they’re in touch all the time and always asking you down to be their guest for the day but QPR never do. Burnley do it all the time and considering the difference in resources I think that’s sad.

Everton are unique, they’ve formed a former players foundation and what they do for their ex players is beyond belief. Some guys from my era are destitute now. To be fair it could be their own fault you give some players a hundred quid and they’ll spend a hundred and ten because some people can’t cope with money. Regardless Everton raise funds through golf days, after dinner speeches and the like and it's all organised through a voluntary committee and held in a charitable trust. Then if any ex player gets into trouble financially or health wise the committee will help them out. If I needed a new knee for example I could get in touch with them and they would help me out. It’s an incredible thing they do.

I look at QPR and what they’ve done for their ex players and it’s nothing at all. I think that’s really sad .


The rest should be read at
qprnet.com/interviews/thomas.shtml

UPDATED LINK to the full QPR Net Interview
qprnet.com/index.php/qprnet-interviews/10-interview-thomas

[Macmoish]

Another year...Another HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Oct 5, 2010 6:32:06 GMT Macmoish said:

And a great QPRNet Q&A with Dave Thomas (from about a couple of years ago - Something which we've been talking about on this board) - and it's obviously not the current QPR or the previous QPR board alone. It's been consistent.

One excerpt here:

"....The only thing I’d criticise QPR for these days is how they treat players after they’ve retired. Burnley and Everton are fantastic they’re in touch all the time and always asking you down to be their guest for the day but QPR never do. Burnley do it all the time and considering the difference in resources I think that’s sad.

Everton are unique, they’ve formed a former players foundation and what they do for their ex players is beyond belief. Some guys from my era are destitute now. To be fair it could be their own fault you give some players a hundred quid and they’ll spend a hundred and ten because some people can’t cope with money. Regardless Everton raise funds through golf days, after dinner speeches and the like and it's all organised through a voluntary committee and held in a charitable trust. Then if any ex player gets into trouble financially or health wise the committee will help them out. If I needed a new knee for example I could get in touch with them and they would help me out. It’s an incredible thing they do.

I look at QPR and what they’ve done for their ex players and it’s nothing at all. I think that’s really sad .


The rest should be read at
qprnet.com/interviews/thomas.shtml

[jayrigg]

One of my first heroes,

Happy Birthday Dave,

Thanks for the memories

cheers,

Jay.

What a great idea for an ex-players association,
Can we pass that on to TF Mac?

[egranger]

My Grandmother's favourite!!
Happy Birthday

[Macmoish]

And his sale by Jim Gregory - just days before the start of the new season, added to retirement of Frank McClintock and the replacement of Dave Sexton with 29 year-old Frank Sibley, clearly showed the culmination of the QPR dream/unlimited ambition - at least by the owner

[gramps]

I am at present in touch with Ron Phillips who was QPR Secretary from 1966-1989. In talking in connection with my book about some of the Rs players and wages he commented that DT was not really bothered about the money - he just loved playing the game. He said:

"Dave Thomas' first love was growingtomatoes, so I have a soft spot for him. When a game was over, he would come across to my office to discuss the best fertiliser to get the largest specimens."

[toasis]

Still my hero!

[jayrigg]

Read in a match programmme a long time ago that he used to bring some fruit and vege in for the blokes on matchday/training.

How football has changed.



cheers,



Jay.

[haqpr1963]

A real hero of mine and a true QPR legend.

Any chance we could get Adel some seeds and a plot somewhere.

Point out to him (and his many advisors) how much tomato's cost now and we might just turn his head.....

[waterbuffalo]

what a champ, he could beat you by speed and dribbling. Happy Birthday Mr. Thomas!

[Macmoish]

Birthday...Yesterday! Missed it...

Dave Thomas, possibly QPR's greatest Number 11, turned Sixty-Two

[Macmoish]

And from a couple of years ago, posted on the blog


Nice Retrospective: Burnley Profile of Dave Thomas


Burnley Mad profile of one QPR's greatests

Burnley MAD/By Tony Scholes - Dave Thomas
Date and Place of Birth 5th October 1950 - Kirkby-in-Ashfield

Transfers to and from Burnley
apprentice then pro October 1967 to Queens Park Rangers October 1972 £165,000
First and Last Burnley games
Everton (h) - 13th May 1967
Luton Town (a) - 30th September 1972 replaced by Geoff Nulty

Other Clubs Queens Park Rangers, Everton,
Wolverhampton Wanderers, Vancouver Whitecaps,
Middlesbrough, Portsmouth

Burnley Career Stats

Season League FA Cup League Cup Others Total
.
apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls apps gls
1966/67 1 - - - - - - - 1 -
1967/68 3 - - - - - - - 3 -
1968/69 37(2) 4 2 - 8 3 - - 47(2) 7
1969/70 34(2) 4 - - 3 1 - - 37(2) 5
1970/71 34 3 1 - 1 - 2 - 38 3
1971/72 33 4 1 - 3 - - - 37 4
1972/73 11 4 - - 1 - - - 12 4
.
Total 153(4) 19 4 - 16 4 2 - 175(4) 23


Player Profile by Tony Scholes

It isn't often supporters would get excited about the signing of a 15-year-old schoolboy, but that was definitely the case in 1966 when Dave Thomas joined the club as an apprentice.

He'd already played at Turf Moor in a schools match and that was enough for the fans to see there was another player with some potential joining the club.

Thomas, born in Nottinghamshire but brought up in West Auckland, had something of a football pedigree. Years earlier his grandfather 'Ticer' Thomas became something of a legend in the north east having played in the Bishop Auckland side that won the FA Amateur Cup. He was also in the West Auckland side that became the first team to win the 'World Cup' which was depicted in the TV programme "A Captain's Tale" starring Dennis Waterman.

But for the young Thomas, his Burnley career started at the beginning of the 1966/67 season and he already came with great expectation with Jack Hixon, the scout who had found him for Burnley, describing him as the finest prospect he had ever seen.

Such were the hopes for him that he went straight into the reserve team and was almost immediately a regular in the Central League. Playing on the left wing those who went to the games soon saw his ability to beat players and cross the ball as well as his powerful shooting.

Incredibly, on the last day of that season, he was named in the Burnley side for the home game against Everton. At 16 years and 220 days of age he was 46 days older than Tommy Lawton was when he made his debut, but Thomas became the youngest player ever to play in a top flight game for Burnley, a record he still holds to this day.

That appearance didn't win him an automatic place in the side for the following season, but it was still one to remember for Thomas and the younger players at Burnley as we lifted the FA Youth Cup for the only time in the club's history.

With Steve Kindon on the left wing he played in an 'inside forward' role during the cup run but found himself in the first team the following season on the right wing as a replacement for Willie Morgan who had been sold to Manchester United.

One game stands out in that first full season, the 5-1 win against Leeds that came during a run of eight successive wins. Thomas was brilliant that October afternoon and beaten manager Don Revie, not one for offering praise to the opposition, described him as the finest talent in Britain and possibly the whole of Europe.

He won international honours at both youth and under-23 level but as Burnley headed towards relegation his form suffered. There were always rumours that of a rift between himself and Jimmy Adamson, who replaced Harry Potts as manager in 1970, and they were strengthened when he found himself playing a midfield role to accommodate the youngster Leighton James as well as Kindon.

Even so, he played more often than not in the side and was there at the beginning of the 1972/73 season. He played in the first eleven games that season, and scored four goals, but in a 2-2 draw at Luton he was substituted after receiving a booking that led to a suspension.

Geoff Nulty came in for him in the next game as he was forced to sit it out, but there was to be no return for Thomas. He'd played his last game for us and was sold to our promotion rivals Queens Park Rangers for £165,000. I bet they couldn't believe their luck they got him for that price.

As we won the second division, Thomas was in the QPR side that finished runners up. He picked up his runners up medal but also qualified for, and received, a winners medal. On his returns to Turf Moor he would always be greeted with chants of 'Thomas, Thomas, runner up'.

Back in the top flight he found his stage, and took a QPR side close to the title in the 1975/76 season as Burnley headed back down. By then he'd become a full international, making his England debut in Revie's first match in charge. He came on as a substitute for Frank Worthington against Czechoslovakia and almost immediately set up the first goal Mick Channon with an inch perfect cross.

After almost five years at Loftus Road he moved back to the north west and joined Everton in a £200,000 deal and was again in the same side as his former Burnley captain Martin Dobson. He spent two years at Goodison Park and seemed to set up goal after goal for Bob Latchford.

His next move took him to Molineux. Wolves paid £325,000 for his services but it proved to be an unsuccessful move. He hardly played for them and he was eventually released. From there he signed for Vancouver Whitecaps and on his return to England played for both Middlesbrough and Portsmouth.

They were his last club but he stayed after his retirement and joined the coaching staff and was later a coach at Brentford before dropping out of the game.

I always bemoan the fact that we never saw the best of him at Burnley. That I think was reserved for the QPR fans. In the end he was never able to deliver the promise at Turf Moor, but whether that was down to him or others we'll never know.

An in form Thomas was worth the admission money alone. He had pace, and a fantastic turn of pace. He could beat players with ease and could find the heads of strikers with unerring accuracy.

He only played for his country eight times and his career at the top was over far too soon. But at his best he was simply a class act.

Clarets Mad

[Macmoish]

ALSO: Birthday Today for Steve Slade

Steve Slade Turns 37. - Born October 6, 1975.

He SHOULD be coming to an end of a solid professional football career

His career (at QPR or anywhere after QPR) didn't exactly take off.
But when he signed from Spurs after playing for ENgland U-21s, were such high hopes

Slade, then an England Under 21 forward was signed from Spurs by Ray Wilkins after QPR's relegation, in the Summer of 1996

Bio - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Slade


And 36th Birthday for goalie we seemed set to sign and then ended up not: Stefan Postma

qprreport.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=7305


Read more: qprreport.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=7304#ixzz28V2dJ1ge

[Macmoish]

And to repost what Bushman previously-posted from his archives

[Macmoish]

And also

[Macmoish]

And from a couple years ago

I've not heard that "...Dave Thomas is 59 now, still fit and sprightly in his retirement from PE teaching, despite suffering from glaucoma and being registered blind. A father of two and grandfather of four, he now lives in West Sussex....


Independent/Simon Turnbull

When West Auckland ruled the world... twice

They finished 16th in the Northern League last season but a century ago the County Durham village pitmen put Europe's professionals in their place

By Simon Turnbull

Sunday, 11 July 2010

These are not exactly the best of times for West Auckland Town Football Club. They finished 16th in the First Division of the Northern League last season, below the likes of Billingham Synthonia, Norton and Stockton Ancients, Bedlington Terriers and West Allotment Celtic. Still, unlike the English national team, they have won the World Cup twice – or the Sir Thomas Lipton World Football Trophy, as the forerunner of today's global competition was known.

How a village team from County Durham came to lift the Lipton Trophy as England's representatives in an international tournament in Turin in 1909 was told on the small screen in 1982 in The World Cup: A Captain's Tale. The Tyne Tees TV dramatisation featured Dennis Waterman in the starring role of Bob Jones, who led his team of fellow pitmen to victory ahead of professional clubs chosen to represent Italy (Torino), Germany (Stuttgart Sportfreunde) and Switzerland (FC Winterthur).

The West Auckland players had to pawn furniture and wedding rings to pay for the trip to northern Italy. They returned in 1911, thrashing Juventus 6-1 in the final. As two-time winners, they were allowed to keep the magnificent Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy. It was stolen in 1994 but a replica stands on display at West Auckland Workingmen's Club.

"It's an amazing story, quite unique," says Dave Thomas, taking a break from fishing by the banks of the River Test in Hampshire. "I'm very proud of my family's history in it." Thomas is a West Auckland lad, one of two notable right wingers to come from the village in the rural Wear Valley. The other was Sir Anthony Eden, Winston Churchill's successor as Conservative Prime Minister in 1955.

Thomas won eight caps for England as a twinkle-toed right winger. He made an instant impact on his debut, delivering a pin-point cross for Mick Channon to score in a 3-0 win against Czechoslovakia at Wembley in October 1974, the first game of Don Revie's reign as England manager. Thomas had made his top-flight debut for Burnley at 16, was one of the stars of the classy Queens Park Rangers team pipped to the title by a solitary Liverpool point in 1976, and also played for Everton, Wolves, Vancouver Whitecaps, Middlesbrough and Portsmouth. He never got to play in the World Cup finals but his beloved grandfather and namesake was one of the West Auckland World Cup heroes.

David Rhys Thomas – or "Ticer" Thomas, as he was known – was a tough, skilful wing-half who made such an impression when the part-timers won the inaugural Lipton Trophy that he was offered a coaching job in Italy. He was portrayed in A Captain's Tale by David Bradley, who had played the boy Billy Casper in Kes.

Quite how Ticer Thomas and a team lying third from bottom of the Northern League table came to represent England in 1909 is not entirely certain. It was the Glasgow-born tea magnate Sir Thomas Lipton who had the idea of staging a world football tournament in Italy, 21 years before the launch of the official World Cup. He had hoped that Woolwich Arsenal would represent England but when the Football Association refused to allow any clubs to take part, he turned to the WA of West Auckland instead – in all probability because one of his employees was friendly with a referee in the Northern League.

"I grew up hearing tales about how West Auckland won the World Cup," Dave Thomas says. "My grandad was a wonderful man. I was very close to him. He lived with us in West Auckland, in the same house where my mam and dad still live today. He used to watch me play and he always said to my mam and dad, 'He'll play for England.' Sadly, he didn't live to see it happen. I was 13 when he died."

Dave Thomas is 59 now, still fit and sprightly in his retirement from PE teaching, despite suffering from glaucoma and being registered blind. A father of two and grandfather of four, he now lives in West Sussex with his wife Brenda, with whom he has taken enthusiastically to the sport of carriage driving – not exactly a common pastime for a former professional footballer. "We absolutely love it," he says.

Ticer Thomas's grandson cannot say that he won the World Cup, or a version of it, but he did score the winner against West Germany at Wembley in 1966. "That's right," he says. "For England schoolboys. I'll never forget the date: 30 April 1966. There were 90,000 at Wembley and I was fortunate enough to get the winning goal. We beat West Germany 2-1. I never thought then that England would win the World Cup final against the same country in the same stadium three months later."

www.independent.co.uk/sport/footb....ce-2023869.html

Read more: qprreport.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=14870#ixzz28V7Ek4Sr



Also: As Dave Thomas said in his Q&A with QPRNet couple years ago

"...The only thing I’d criticise QPR for these days is how they treat players after they’ve retired. Burnley and Everton are fantastic they’re in touch all the time and always asking you down to be their guest for the day but QPR never do. Burnley do it all the time and considering the difference in resources I think that’s sad..... I look at QPR and what they’ve done for their ex players and it’s nothing at all. I think that’s really sad . " QPRNet

[mfnc]

mr philip 'so what do you want me to about it?' beard has no time for ex players, he is just interested in in bringing money into the club.

sounds ok doesnt it? but he really is detached from the support. that is quite alarming.

[Macmoish]

Dave Thomas Turns 63


Photos from 1975/76

qprreport.proboards.com/thread/34337/division-runners-1975-76-season