RIP Cec Thompson (1926-2011) 2nd Black Rugby Player for GB

From orphanages, poor education and racism, Thompson went on to achieve sporting success, educational succees and entrepreneurial success. He died on 19 July 2011, aged 85

His autobiography: 'Born on the Wrong Side', was published in 1995

He was born Theodore Cecil Thompson, 12 July 1926, in Birtley, Co Durham
His mother was a miner's daughter and his Trinidadian father, who had a job in Leeds putting gold leaf on the walls of the town hall, died before Cec was born. The family then relocated to Yorkshire, and the four children were sent to orphanages – Cec initially in Wiltshire, then Cheshire and the north-east

Education: he was bullied regularly, often in a racist fashion, leaving him bereft of confidence and social skills. "By the time I left school at 14, I was utterly desensitised and virtually unemployable." After four years' labouring in Leeds, he served in the navy from 1944 to 1947, then returned to Leeds as a lorry driver's mate at the Yorkshire Copper Works.

His lack of a formal education had once left him unable to sign autographs, but he later joined music and operatic societies, and an art club, passed his English O-level after taking night classes in Workington while coaching Barrow, then enrolled at Huddersfield Technical College in 1962. He qualified to teach Economics after studying at Leeds University, from 1965, at the age of 39. There he helped establish the first student rugby league club – the sport having previously been deemed unsuitable for academic institutions. After graduation he took a diploma of education and secured a job at Dinnington high school in South Yorkshire. Five years later he moved to Chesterfield grammar to become head of economics and in charge of rugby for 17 years. He received an honorary degree from Leeds University in 1994.

Key details: Cec Thompson became one of the first black Rugby League players in the UK. He played his first game of rugby in a works tournament in Bramley. He took up rugby league in the 1940s when working near Hunslet in Leeds. Thompson progressed rapidly through the professional ranks, despite breaking his leg late in his first season, to such an extent that Eddie Waring, then a newspaper journalist, wrote: "If Cec Thompson is not chosen for the Great Britain squad, the selectors must be racists."

In 1951 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. He was one of the founders of student rugby league in the UK.
A few black players had already earned representative honours in rugby league – George Bennett for Wales and the Cumberbatch brothers Val and Jimmy for England before WWII, and Roy Francis for GB after it. But Thompson's colour remained sufficiently noteworthy for the Daily Herald to headline its report of his debut, in a 21-15 victory over New Zealand at the Odsal stadium, Bradford: "Hunslet's Darkie one of Britain's heroes."
He also played in the second Test at Swinton, the first rugby league international to be televised, but the remaining highlights of his career came at club level with Workington Town, after he moved to the Cumbrian coast with his first wife, Barbara, in 1953.
He had impressed Gus Risman, the great Welsh player who was then coaching Workington, and the pair remained sufficiently close for Thompson to give the address at Risman's funeral in 1994.
In 1958 he played in both the Challenge Cup final at Wembley and the Championship final at Odsal, but Workington lost on each occasion and on the second, Thompson suffered a knee injury that hampered the remaining two years of his career.
He then had a mostly unhappy spell as the coach of Barrow, again following Francis as the second black coach in professional rugby league, but by this stage he had already turned an active mind to the next phase of his life.
He had launched a window-cleaning business in and around Workington, and also felt sufficiently confident with reading and writing – developed on coach trips to away games with Hunslet, when he would learn new words from the Reader's Digest – to make a tentative move into journalism. Meanwhile, his Cumbrian cleaning firm, TC Thompson, grew to employ 620 staff at its peak.
After retirement, Thompson retired to the Lake District with his second wife, Anne, who he married in 1964, and their son, Mark.

An impressive life, by any standard, but giving his starting point in life Thompson is a real inspiration.

I'd like to think that he kept in touch with his siblings, who the social services had so cruelly separated.