England winger will find out today if he gets a guide dog
Dave Thomas was too emotional to speak at his own wedding 43 years ago and he’s in a similar state today, pausing repeatedly to wipe away the tears as he explains how much support he has had since being registered blind seven years ago.
‘I do apologise,’ he says, collecting himself, only to break down again when he mentions his mobility instructor David Waterfall-Brown, who has been teaching him to walk with a white cane. ‘He’s been absolutely inspirational,’ says Thomas. again, he dissolves into tears, but of gratitude, not self-pity.
The former Burnley, Queens Park Rangers and everton winger, who played eight times for england in the mid-Seventies, has been robbed by severe glaucoma of almost all his peripheral vision. Yet it is not in his make-up to curse his luck, only to count his blessings.
Thomas and his wife Brenda keep geese at their home in the County Durham countryside, and a month ago, trying to catch a goose that had escaped from the paddock, Thomas walked headlong into a branch that he simply didn’t see. His face was badly cut, the cue for him to get a white cane, and also to apply for a guide dog. Today his needs will be assessed by the Guide Dogs for the Blind association.
‘I still have pretty good central vision,’ he says. ‘I still play golf (off a handicap of nine, no less), although if I hit it right or left, or up in the air, then I have to rely on my playing partners to tell me where it’s gone. But the point is that there are plenty worse off than me, so I felt terrible guilt applying for a dog. But a lovely woman from Guide Dogs called Linda Oliver helped me through that. and if I’m luckyy enough to get one it will make a big difference.’
In his Seventies pomp as a footballer, Thomas was a proper, old-fashioned winger,, tormenting full backs on hiss scampering runs to the byline,, from where he delivered unerr- ing, pinpoint crosses. Hiss refusal ever to wear shinpads s meant that his socks weree always round his ankles, some- how lending an extra frisson of excitement as he turned thee right back inside out.
I have stayed in touch withh him ever since writing a book about my childhood everton heroes, of whom he was one. and so I feel I can risk sharing with him a line from an evertonian pal, who, while desperately sorry to hear about Thomas’s diminishing eyesight, said: ‘But I bet he could still find Bob Latchford in the penalty area.’ Thomas roars with laughter. He is 65 now, and it is 15 years since an optician referred him to an eye specialist, who told him that he had a hereditary condition and would continue to lose his peripheral vision. His driving licence was taken away and with it a large measure of his independence. Brenda drives him everywhere. ‘But with a dog, I’ll be able to get the bus,’ he says. ‘It will change my life.’
The Thomases live in the former potting shed of a grand country house near Barnard Castle, although that makes it sound much more humble than it is. It is a lovely home, testament to a life sensibly lived, bonuses put into his pension pot
QPR will sponsor a dog
for a year... it’s wonderful
during his playing days and a long subsequent career as a PE teacher.
So when Thomas last week decided to start a fund-raising campaign, it wasn’t for himself, but in aid of the Guide Dogs charity. ‘I wanted to put something back,’ he says. ‘From birth to retirement it costs £50,000 per dog. And there are almost 5,000 dogs in the UK. It’s a fantastic charity. But they do need money.’
He set about contacting every Premier League club, asking each of them for a signed shirt, which he intends to auction. His comparatively modest target was £5,000, but he has been overwhelmed with the response on his online donation page, and again fights a losing battle with his emotions as he shakes his head in wonder at how generous folk have already been.
‘One of my old clubs, QPR, have agreed to sponsor a dog for a year,’ he says, through his tears. ‘It’s just wonderful.’
Thomas is far too decent a man to reflect on how many dogs could be sponsored with, say, one per cent of the average Premier League player’s salary. He does not dwell for a moment on the vast gulf between pay packets in his era and the riches dished out now.
But he does tell an evocative story about himself and his footballing family. His grandfather, David Reece Thomas, had been the captain of West Auckland, the team of pitmen from County Durham who, in one of the most romantic and improbable of all football stories, won the Sir Thomas Lipton World Football Trophy — forerunner of the World Cup — in Turin in 1909.
It was his grandad who taught him to play football, but he plainly had plenty of inherited natural talent. At 15, he was playing for England Schoolboys and had agreed terms with Burnley.
But then Don Revie’s mighty Leeds United came after him. Literally. Thomas’s father had a motorbike and sidecar — ‘ like Wallace and Gromit’ — and after a county match one day in 1965, Revie and his chief scout followed father and son back to their terraced house in West Auckland.
‘Revie talked to my dad, said he wanted me to join Leeds, but Dad said I’d signed for Burnley and that was that. So Revie said he’d come back in 48 hours with a director to try to persuade us. My Dad said, “You can bring who you like”.’
‘Well, blow me, he was true to his word. Two days later a Rolls-Royce turns up in our little terraced street. Don Revie and (Leeds director) Manny Cussins. Everyone in the street is looking at it. None of them has ever seen a Roller before. They come in and Manny Cussins says, “Mr Thomas, how much have Burnley offered your David?” He says, “He’s getting £4 a week and they’re paying his digs on top. I think that’s a good deal”.
‘Now, bear in mind that my dad was a welder with British Rail, working night shifts, which he did for 42 years. So Manny Cussins goes, “Look, what if we pay him £30 a week and pay his digs? Will that tempt him?”
‘That was a lot more than my dad was earning and I was only 15! Then, on top of that, they produce two grand in five-pound notes, in a black case. It would’ve bought the whole street. But my dad looked at it and said, “I’m sorry, but I’ve given my word to Burnley that David will play for them”. He was emphatic. And as he was leaving, Manny Cussins turned round and said, “I respect you for that, Mr Thomas. Not many people would have done that”.’
It’s a great story and there is a moving postscript. Thomas’s father, David Lloyd Thomas, died 18 months ago, aged 97. He was totally blind by then, stricken by the glaucoma that now afflicts his son. He was also, to the end, a man of principle, integrity and decency. Maybe that is hereditary, too.
For more information or to donate, visit justgiving.com/DavidThomas7 and guidedogs.org.uk