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| Birth name | Richard Charles Clement Thomas | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Date of birth | (1929-01-28)28 January 1929 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of birth | Cardiff, Wales | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Date of death | 5 September 1996(1996-09-05) (aged 67) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Place of death | Swansea, Wales | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| School | Blundell's School | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| University | Cambridge University | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Rugby union career | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Richard Clement Charles "Clem" Thomas (28 January 1929 – 5 September 1996)[1] was aWales international rugby union player. Aflanker, he representedCambridge University R.U.F.C. in theVarsity Match in 1949 and played forBrynamman,Swansea,London Welsh andHarlequins. He earned 26 caps for Wales, between 1949 and 1959 and captained Wales in his last nine internationals.[1] After retiring as a player he became a rugby union journalist and author of books on the game.
Thomas first came to note as a rugby player while still a school-boy. A boarder atBlundell's School in Tiverton he gained four Wales School-boy caps while at the school. He gained his first full senior cap in the match againstFrance in the1949 Five Nations Championship.[2]
Thomas was also a member of the last Wales team that defeated theNew Zealand All Blacks in 1953. In fact, it was Thomas's cross field kick that enabledKen Jones, the flying Welsh winger, to gather the ball and touch down for the winning try.[2]
Thomas toured South Africa with theBritish & Irish Lions in 1955. He was taken ill shortly after the start of the tour and was operated on forappendicitis, which caused him to miss the first ten tour matches. He spent part of his recuperation on a farm owned by the South African pilotSailor Malan and rejoined the tour in time to be selected for the final two test matches againstSouth Africa.Tony O'Reilly, writing after Thomas's death, felt that if Thomas had been available for all four games the Lions might have won the series rather than drawing it 2–2.[3] Thomas captained the Lions team in the game againstNatal.[4]
Clem Thomas was born inCardiff and educated atBlundell's School[2] andSt. John's College, Cambridge.[4] He was married twice, to Ann Barter in 1954 and Joyce Rowley in 1980 and had three sons and one daughter with his first wife.[2] One of his sons, Greg Thomas, was the Head of Media on the2009 British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa.[5] Clem Thomas was a butcher by trade but when he retired from playing rugby he took up journalism and worked forThe Observer for 35 years and thenThe Independent on Sunday for the last two years of his life.[2] He co-authored the bookWelsh Rugby with Geoff Nicholson and wroteThe History of the British and Irish Lions which he completed shortly before his death.
Thomas also ownedSwansea's No Sign Bar in the 1960s: historianPeter Stead has argued that the popularity ofBeaujolais Day in the city can be traced to this period: Thomas also owned a house in Burgundy and could transport the newly released Beaujolais quickly and cheaply to south Wales for sale.[6]
Thomas also took part in politics. He stood unsuccessfully as a candidate for theLiberal Party in two general elections for the UK parliament, contestingGower inFebruary 1974 andCarmarthen in1979, and in the first direct elections for the European Parliament inMid and West Wales in1979.[2]
He died in Swansea in 1996 aged 67.
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