Cec Thompson

Cec Thompson (12 July 1926 – 19 July 2011) was a British professional rugby league footballer who played in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s.

He was born in County Durham, the son of a mother from Durham and a Trinidadian father. His father died when he was very young and his childhood was spent in a succession of orphanages.

Thompson took up rugby league when working near Hunslet. He turned out to have a natural talent for the game. He went on to play for Great Britain and Ireland and was transferred to Workington Town in Cumbria after which he was manager of Barrow.

All of Thompson's games for Hunslet and in representative matches were as a second-row forward. For Workington he played 164 games at second-row, twenty-two at loose forward, and six on the 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.

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.

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 University of Leeds in 1967.

Thompson built up his own window cleaning business, and then qualified to teach Economics with a degree from the University of Leeds and a teaching diploma at the age of 39, initially at Dinnington Comprehensive School and then at Chesterfield Grammar School.