Albert Thombs

Albert Edward Thombs... soccer family (brother Horace)... moved to Canada in 1905... married Ada Foster on 14 October 1918 in Wentworth, ON... he was 75 years old when he passed away on 30 September 1957... one of four brothers that started Thombs Brothers’ Builders in Hamilton (with Alfred, Edwin and Horace)... he worked 35 years for Westinghouse... after his 1924 retirement, a Hamilton-Toronto testimonial match was played in his honour on 24 May 1924, (Mayor Jutten paid a “glowing tribute” at half time)...

posthumously honoured by the Canada Soccer Hall of Fame as a player (he was shortlisted as an original alternate by The Soccer Hall of Fame in 2000 and then honoured as part of the Class of 2017)... posthumously honoured by the Hamilton Soccer Hall of Fame...

as noted in 1920 in the Montréal Gazette after a hat trick performance, “Tiny still has all his old tricks at his toes and a fast-thinking brain in action”... as noted in 1924 in the Hamilton Spectator, “for many years Thombs was without an equal in Canada as an outside left and, even when he had passed what what is supposed to be the prime of a soccer player, he was still looked upon as the best and was able to show the younger stars the way the opposition should be played”... wrote Hamilton Spectator’s Dave Smith in 1951, “it is generally agreed that he (Thombs) would have been a star in top British circles”...