Researching Arthur Thomas

He was one of the stars of the Linfield team in the 1966–67 season when the club reached the Quarter Final of the European Cup, before losing narrowly on aggregate to CSKA Sofia of Bulgaria. Arthur scored three goals in the European tie against Aris of Luxembourg that season and his final tally of five European goals is still a club record held jointly with Phil Scott and current star striker, Glenn Ferguson.

A former schoolteacher from Birkenhead in Merseyside, Arthur joined New Brighton on the Wirral from Linfield in September 1967 and around 45 years ago he emigrated to Sydney, Australia. Arthur died in Sydney on 8 November 2007.

Category:1938 birthsCategory:2007 deathsCategory:Linfield F.C. playersCategory:Republic of Ireland association footballersCategory:Association football inside forwards

On 14 January 1931 a workman who was engaged in dismantling a wooden staging fixed across the track of the Metropolitan Railway Station at Kings Cross, slipped and fell from a height of about 20 feet to the permanent way of the down Inner Circle line. He was unconscious and lay face downwards across one running rail with his head close to the negative rail of the electrified system. Mr. Thomas, who was acting as flagman for the protection of the workmen, saw the man fall and at the same time heard a down train approaching the station round the curve. Realising that a signal could not be seen by the driver in time for him to stop the train, Mr, Thomas immediately jumped down from the platform to the up line and, crossing two positive and two negative rails carrying 600 volts, snatched the unconscious man from almost under the wheels of the approaching train and held him in a small recess in the wall whilst the train passed within a few inches of them.

Thomas made his debut for Glamorgan in the 1913 Minor Counties Championship against the Surrey Second XI, in what was his only Minor Counties appearance for the county. By 1925, Glamorgan were a first-class county. Thomas made his only first-class appearance for Glamorgan in the 1925 County Championship against Northamptonshire at St. Helen's, Swansea. In the match he scored 15 runs, leaving him with a batting average of 7.50 and a top score of 11.

Thomas died at the town of his birth on 11 February 1953.

Thomas was educated at Winchester College and at Trinity College, Cambridge. As a cricketer, he was a batsman, sometimes used as an opener, and there is no evidence that he bowled in first-class cricket, though the full details of the matches in which he played have not survived. It is not known whether he batted right- or left-handed. He played in two matches in each of the 1837 and 1838 seasons that have since been designated as first-class; his final game was the 1838 University Match against Oxford University, in which he scored 6 and 3 not out.

Thomas graduated from Cambridge University in 1839 with a Bachelor of Arts degree which automatically converted to a Master of Arts in 1842. He was ordained as a Church of England deacon in 1840 and as a priest the following year. He was successively a curate at Eastergate, West Sussex and then Whaddon and Shepreth in Cambridgeshire before becoming priest-in-charge at Milford, Surrey, from 1846. In 1848, he became vicar at Rottingdean, East Sussex and remained there for the rest of his life.