Duncan Thompson

Duncan Thompson

Thomson in 1925
Personal information
Full name	Duncan Fulton Thompson
Nickname	The Downs Fox
Born	(1895-03-14)14 March 1895 Warwick, Queensland, Australia
Died	27 May 1980(1980-05-27) (aged 85) Auchenflower, Queensland, Australia
Playing information
Height	171 cm (5 ft 7 in)
Weight	72 kg (11 st 5 lb)
Position	Halfback
Club Years Team Pld T G FG P 1911–15 St.Paul's (Ipswich) 1915 Wests (Newcastle) 1916–23 North Sydney 58 10 47 124 1919 Starlights (Ipswich) 1924–25 Valleys (Toowoomba) Total 58 10 47 0 124 Representative Years Team Pld T G FG P 1915–25 Queensland 11 1 18 38 1919–22 New South Wales 1 0 1920–24 Australia 9 2 11
Coaching information
Club Years Team Gms W D L W% 195?–?? Toowoomba

Duncan Fulton Thompson MBE (14 March 1895 – 17 May 1980) was an Australian rugby league footballer, coach and administrator. He also fought in the First World War, was named amongst the nation's finest footballers of the 20th century, and is regarded as the father of modern coaching.

Born in Warwick, Queensland, on 14 March 1895, Thompson would go on to become a banker and skillful rugby league halfback. He commenced his club career in the Queensland town of Ipswich, and first represented for Queensland in 1915.

Thompson moved to Sydney where he played for Norths before enlisting in the First Australian Imperial Force in 1916 during World War I. He left Sydney in 1917 on HMAS Ayrshire with the 49th Battalion (Queensland) within 13th Brigade of the Australian 4th Division, and saw active service in Belgium and France. In April 1918 during the German Spring Offensive he was shot through the chest at Dernancourt on the Ancre River but survived. He was told he would not play sport again and carried a bullet fragment in his body for the rest of his life. He was discharged after demobilisation in January 1919.

After returning to Australia in 1919 Thompson joined the Commonwealth Bank and re-commenced his football career. He made the 1919 tour of New Zealand in the first Australian full Test representative side to cross the Tasman. With the world still recovering from World War I and in the midst of the deadly Spanish flu pandemic, the side could only find passage to New Zealand on a cockroach and rat-infested cargo ship out of Newcastle harbour. Half-way across the Tasman, bites from the ship-bred vermin led to Thompson and "Chook" Fraser falling victim to blood-poisoned legs.