The Dave Thomas Story: Life in a Press Box

Many people’s lives turn on moments of good, or sometimes not so good, fortune and a whole set of unplanned circumstances set Dave Thomas on the path to a career that’s seen him cover the ups and downs of Torquay United for more than 50 years.

Dave was being pointed towards the legal profession as a teenager, but a series of twists and turns took him towards the life he’d always wanted – as a sports reporter.

In a chat with the Torbay Weekly’s Tim Herbert, he looked back.

“I’m a Norfolk boy really, raised on a farm there, which is where I became a lifelong Norwich City fan,” he said.

“But my dad was from the Westcountry originally, he still had family in Cornwall and he’d booked me and my two brothers, Andy and Phil, into boarding school down here.

“So we moved – lock, stock, barrel and herd of prize Friesian cattle – to South Devon around 1960.

“It wasn’t long before I started at Blundell’s, at Tiverton, where I wasn’t bad at sport, but gradually struggled with my eyesight.

“I tried contact lenses, but they were like little rocks in those days and I used to run around with tears pouring down my face.

“I did OK at school, where rugby was almost a religion, but I’d always loved football and I did help to start a team at Blundell’s, which was almost sacrilege at a school like that.

“It’s still being played there, I believe.

“I have an admission to make here.

“The first team I watched in Devon was actually Exeter City, because you could catch a train or bus there from Tiverton.

“But in 1964, when I was home from school and living near Bovey Tracey, a friend who was a big Torquay United fan persuaded me to go to Plainmoor with him.

“I caught the ‘Football Special’ bus from Newton Abbot, stood on the Pop Side and watched as we beat Stockport 1-0 (Robin Stubbs).

“I was hooked.

“As for me taking up reporting for a career, I blame it all on England winning the World Cup – that’s my excuse anyway.

“It was 1966, and I was supposed to get good enough A-levels to go to Cambridge University to study Law.

“But as if the excitement of that World Cup wasn’t enough, we played Portugal in the Semi-Final the night before one of my most important exams – it was English Literature.

“My revising had been seriously undermined anyway, I did absolutely none the night of the Portugal game and, after England won 2-0, all I could think about was the Final.

“We’d broken up by the time we won the Cup, but I’d kind of blown my exams, not disastrously but enough to take Cambridge out of the equation.

“I was offered a place at Keele University instead.

“But it was at that time that my dad died suddenly – he was only 55, I was 18.

“It obviously had a huge impact on our family, especially as all three of us had been at boarding school and my brothers were both still there when it happened.

“Schools like that were quite tough in those days, but we all realised we had to grow up pretty quickly.

“Things weren’t easy for our mum, even though she never put any extra pressures on us.

“Going away to Keele for a four-year Law course that I didn’t really want to do anyway suddenly seemed like a bad idea. I needed to get a job and a new life.

“We were living near Bovey Tracey, so I wrote to the Editor of the Herald Express, who kindly agreed to meet me.

“He didn’t have a vacancy at the time, but he did point me in the direction of the Torquay Times, which had offices just down Braddons Hill Road in Torquay.

“Luckily the Torquay Times was then part of the fairly new Daily Mirror Training Scheme.

“I applied, did some tests, had an interview in London with quite a few other people who seemed far brighter than me and, somehow, got a place.

“It was also a four-year course, but it began in Plymouth and was much nearer to home.

“We were on £10 a week and I think a fiver of that went on sharing a small bedsit.

“We had to do shorthand and typing for about six months, and we all had so little money that our social life - 16 of us school leavers and undergraduates – used to share whatever beers we could lay our hands on and wander from flat to flat playing Subbuteo!

“We got raided by the police once in the middle of ‘Finals Night’ somewhere off Mutley Plain, because of the noise.

“When they came in and saw what we were up to, they shook their heads in disbelief and let us off with a warning – after checking who was winning, of course.”

Dave was sent back to the Torquay Times, where he first covered the Gulls during the final days under Frank O’Farrell and then Allan Brown.

Then it was down to the Sunday Independent in Plymouth.

“I worked under the great Harley Lawer, who was the top Plymouth Argyle reporter in those days and taught me so much.

“I was dispatched every Saturday to cover a ‘Cornish Match Of The Day’, driving to places like Porthleven, Nanpean, St Austell, St Blazey and Penzance, phoning in the reports to copytakers who’d soon pull you up if you made even a small grammatical mistake.

“It was great grounding.”

During his final year of training Dave was sent to the Northern offices of the Daily Mirror in Manchester.

“I had a fabulous time there, with some wonderful pros who taught me so much,” he said.

“I was lucky enough to meet people like Bill Shankly, George Best and Matt Busby, had my first taste of Rugby League, which I still love to this day, and, of course, the social life was second to none.”

By 1972 Dave had moved to London and was Sports Editor of a group of weekly papers stretching from Wimbledon to Dockland.

“I wasn’t a very good editor, mainly because I loved reporting much more than sitting in an office handling other people’s copy and laying out pages,” he admitted.

“But I did give myself the job of covering Crystal Palace, which was a nice coincidence because their manager was Bert Head, who’d been a popular player at Plainmoor before and after the War, so we had a good connection there.

“I was at Selhurst Park when Palace beat Manchester United 5-0, which spelled the end for Frank O’Farrell at Old Trafford.

“I remember feeling so sorry for him. Bert actually pulled him into his office and slammed the door, to try and let the scrum of people outside die down a bit.”

A few months later Dave’s career took another turn.

“I was reasonably happy working in London when I had a call one day from Keith Perry, a friend who was covering Torquay United for the Herald Express.

“Keith asked me how I was getting on, but told me that he was moving and wondered if I might be interested in taking over.

“It was one of those calls which put you on the spot – I wasn’t unhappy in London, but I’ve always been a country boy at heart, I suppose, I was missing my family a bit and suddenly I knew I had another big decision to make.”

By the Spring of 1974 Dave was back in Torquay, 50 yards further up Braddons Hill Road than where he’d first started at the Torquay Times.

“I had several chances to leave for other jobs over the next few decades, but I can honestly say that I’ve never regretted saying ‘Yes’ to that phone call or to staying put.

“The Herald and then the Torbay Weekly gave me the chance to do a job I’ve loved, which is all you can ask of any career.

“I’ve been privileged to work with some amazingly talented, dedicated and inspiring people – and a few weird and wonderful ones along the way.

“It hasn’t always been easy, but one thing it’s never been is boring.

“For a start, if you couldn’t have fun in Torbay, especially in the 60s and 70s, there was probably something wrong with you.

“I was lucky enough to cover not just United, but also local club and Devon cricket in the summer, tennis which took me to Wimbledon to report on Sue Barker and others, and also cycling.”

Dave’s high and lows from more than 2,200 games and 50 years of covering the Gulls

How it felt when United were finally relegated from the EFL, especially for the first time in 2007.

The previous season, most of it under Chris Roberts’ regime, had been so chaotic, that there was almost an air of inevitability about it.

The fear of what might happen to United had eased, because so many other League clubs had gone down and bounced back over the 20 years since the first automatic relegation in 1987.

And it quickly became clear that the strong, Paul Bristow-backed board, with Colin Lee to guide it, was waiting to take over.

In a way, it was more worrying when United went down for the second time. At every level, the club wasn’t as strong then and the National League had become even more competitive.

The three biggest highlights for me have got to be 1991, 2004 and 2009.

You’d have to go a long way to beat the sheer drama of the Play-Off win over Blackpool at Wembley in 1991.

It sort of came out of the blue, because United had really blown it in the second half of the season before Mike Bateson, in his first year as chairman, finally sacked Dave Smith with a dozen games to go and replaced him with John Impey, who somehow turned things around.

United only got back into the Play-Offs on the last day of the season, and they were huge outsiders against both Burnley in the Semis and Blackpool.

To win automatic promotion to League One in 2004, for the first time in 36 years, playing a brand of football that we hadn’t seen, perhaps before or certainly since, was a great thrill.

I’d started to believe in that team before Christmas, and I was more and more convinced that they were good enough as the season went on.

I sometimes wonder how devastated we’d all have been if they hadn’t gone up.

And although none of the 3,000-odd at Southend on that last day will ever forget it, how wonderful it would have been if the final victory had been at Plainmoor, rather than so far away?

To win promotion back to the Football League Wembley in 2009 was also unforgettable.

First, it was so important to get out of the ‘Conference’.

But also don’t forget what that team, managed by Paul Buckle and captained by Chris Hargreaves, had been through.

The previous year, they’d battled with Aldershot all season for the Conference title and just lost out, then lost to Exeter City in the Play Off Semi-Final, after leading 3-1 on aggregate in the second leg at Plainmoor, and finally had been beaten by Ebbsfleet in the FA Trophy Final.

To recover 12 months later and win promotion back at Wembley, again as underdogs against Cambridge United, spoke volumes for that team.

One big disappointment NOT involving the Gulls was Sue Barker losing in the Semi-Finals at Wimbledon in 1977.

Sue had won the French Open in 1976, she was in top form and was favourite to beat the Dutch girl Betty Stove.

It was the late Queen’s Silver Jubilee, and another Brit Virginia Wade reached the Final with a three-set win over the defending champion Chris Everton.

But Sue was well capable of beating Wade, she had the game with that huge forehand of hers and her athleticism around the court, and many experts reckon she would have done it.

But her nerve cracked in the Semi, she lost to Stove and Wade went on to win the title. It remains a big what-might-have-been.