JR Thompson

• 02/08/2010

The death was recently announced of JR Thompson, the last remaining player to represent Warwickshire before the Second World War

John Ross Thompson

The son of a former Solihull School headmaster, John Ross Thompson was at the time of his death, the last remaining player to represent Warwickshire prior the Second World War. His teaching commitments at Marlborough College restricted his appearances to just the summer holidays. He also acted as their cricket master for many years, sharing the duties with George Jennings, another Warwickshire old boy from the 1920s amongst others.

From 1938 until 1954 (with the exception of the championship season of 1951, where he was away touring Canada with the MCC), John featured in 44 matches for Warwickshire scoring 1922 runs at an average of 26.32 mainly batting at opener. His two centuries were an unbeaten 102 versus the Combined Services at Edgbaston in 1949 and 103 against Somerset at Taunton two weeks later; with the former he narrowly missed out on scoring a century in each innings after making 97 in the first innings. In 1947 he was awarded his County cap after scoring a couple of fifties.

Thompson made his debut against Sussex in 1938 whilst still at university, where he won Blues in 1938 and the following season. He recorded his highest first class score of 191, as a student, against the Free Foresters at Fenners in 1938, against a side containing several Test stars and shared in a 4th wicket partnership off 255 with Paul Gibb.

After finishing with Warwickshire he continued to play in the Minor Counties with Wiltshire (1955-63) scoring several hundreds.

Not only was Thompson a talented cricketer but he played to a high standard Squash and Rackets, where he finished runner up in 1947 in the Amateur Squash Championship and won the Doubles Amateur Rackets Championship 11 times and Singles on 5 occasions. With Colin Cowdrey (Kent and England) they won the Noel Bruce Public Schools Old Boys Doubles Rackets Championship in 1953, 1956 and 1957, Thompson went on to win this a further 3 times with other partners. With Bill Gordon the Marlborough Rackets professional they developed with the help of ICI a new polythene ball that is still used in the sport today.

In retirement he acted as Rackets correspondent for Country Life from 1983 for fifteen years and was Vice President of the Tennis and Racket Association from 1983 until his death.

In all Thompson scored 3455 First Class runs at 31.12 with 6 centuries.

Steve Sheen