Ritchie Thomas

Edit links
Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For other people with similar names, see Richie Thomas and Richard Thomas (disambiguation).

Ritchie Thomas
Personal information
Full name Richard John Harold Thomas
Date of birth (1915-07-13)13 July 1915
Place of birth Mount Lawley, Western Australia
Date of death 30 July 1988(1988-07-30) (aged 73)
Place of death Perth, Western Australia
Height 178 cm (5 ft 10 in)
Weight 83 kg (183 lb)
Position(s) Back pocket
Playing career1
Years Club Games (Goals)
1933–48 East Perth 207 (2)
1941 Essendon 4 (0)
Representative team honours
Years Team Games (Goals)
1939–46 Western Australia 4 (0)
1 Playing statistics correct to the end of 1948.
Career highlights
  • East Perth premiership player 1936
  • best and fairest
    1939, 1940
Sources: AFL Tables, AustralianFootball.com

Richard John Harold Thomas (13 July 1915 – 30 July 1988) was an Australian rules footballer who played with East Perth in the Western Australian National Football League and for Essendon in the Victorian Football League (VFL).[1]

Thomas was the son of

William 'Digger' Thomas, the 1923 Sandover Medalist who also played with East Perth.[2]

He played his football across half back and was on a flank in East Perth's 1936 premiership side. The defender shared

the "Best and Fairest" award at East Perth in 1939 and then won it outright in 1940.[3]

Thomas enlisted in the

1941 VFL Grand Final, but lost to Melbourne. Thomas was subsequently stationed in Darwin, and was a member of a West Australian team that defeated a combined South Australia–Victoria side in 1942. After eighteen months in Darwin, Thomas was posted to New Britain (in present-day Papua New Guinea). Having spent three months there, he was sent to a military school Sydney to complete physical training. While in Sydney, Thomas took up football with the Eastern Suburbs Australian Football Club (later the UNSW-Eastern Suburbs Bulldogs), playing with a number of other interstate footballers on military service.[7]

He resumed playing with East Perth after the war and represented Western Australia in two interstate matches against South Australia in 1946. This brought his interstate tally to four, having played twice against Victoria before the war.

References

  1. ISBN 978-1-920910-78-5
    .
  2. ^ Full Points Footy: Richard Thomas (East Perth & Essendon)
  3. ^ Essendon Official Website: Thomas, Richard J. H.
  4. ^ WW2 Nominal Roll: Thomas, Richard John Harold
  5. ^ AFL Tables: Richie Thomas
  6. The Argus, "Thomas To Return To W A"
    , 2 September 1941, p. 8
  7. ^ RITCHIE THOMAS'S TRAVELS – The Western Mail. Published 13 July 1945. Retrieved from Trove, 18 August 2012.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ritchie_Thomas&oldid=1118360158"