Cec Thompson

Who was Cec Thompson?

Cec Thompson was a British professional rugby league footballer of the 1940s, '50s and '60s.

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 to Wigan in the 1957–58 Challenge Cup final at Wembley Stadium 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 UK, when along with Andrew Cudbertson and Jack Abernathy, he founded a team at the University of Leeds in 1967.