117
Daily Mail, Saturday, August 17, 2019EDDIE PEPPERELL
THE golfing philosopher
wasn’t at his most eloquent
in calling Bryson
DeChambeau a ‘twit’ over
slow play, but he was on point.
At best, DeChambeau’s crawls around
the course are irritating and at worst
they are against the rules. Pepperell
apologised for getting personal — of
course he did, this is golf — but the
principle was spot on.SOL CAMPBELL
IN the week that he left
Macclesfield after eight
months of immense
patience on his part, it is
necessary to salute the job he
did. Not only in keeping them up against
the odds last season, but also in proving
so many people wrong about how he
might do in management. The former
England defender deserves another
chance soon and you would hope he
gets one.PAUL FURLONG
DECISIVE. Strong.
Resounding. When QPR’s
Under 18s complained of
racism by AD Nervion players
in a pre-season game in Seville last
week, their coach Furlong led the team
off. The problem doesn’t appear to be
going away, so credit to him for taking
firm action.HOT
NOT
THE ASHES
OR, more precisely, the
schedulers. Even when you
accept the reasons for the
series starting later than
ever, you wonder why there
needed to be a nine-day gap between
Tests. July 21 was the previous record for
a late start — in 1890 and 2005, and both
series were affected by rain. Bring your
brolly to The Oval in September.UK ATHLETICS
A MAGNIFICENT farce. They
picked their team to run
the men’s 4x400m relay at
the European Team
Championship in Poland last
Sunday and managed to
accidentally select a reserve shot
putter, Youcef Zatat (right), to run leg
one. The intention had been to pick
Rabah Yousif, an actual runner with a
number of medals. They didn’t start the
race, which is actually a great shame.GB TRIATHLETES
JESS LEARMONTH (right) and
Georgia Taylor-Brown are
among six British women
vying for three spots at next
summer’s Tokyo Olympics. They
are against each other yet they decided
to hold hands and cross the line in joint-
first at the test event in Japan on
Thursday. That was daft, as it’s against
the rules and they were disqualified.
Dafter still when you consider the lost
ranking points they might yet need.WHAT’S
HOT
WHAT’S
NOT
By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI
Football
@riathalsam
@Ian_Ladyman_DMwas before. But I doubt it. It
will always be in the back of my
mind, what has happened to
me. Every time I feel a little
pain, I worry what it may be.
‘You know that? When I
walked in that hospital in
Wrexham earlier this year, I
realised about the real world.
‘I had been so lucky and then
to go in that environment is
devastatingly scary. The kids in
there, for example. God, you
just want to help them.’
With that thought in mind,
Thomas has a decision to make
over the next fortnight. Six
months ago, he would have
done anything to have been
promised this dilemma but it is
troubling him all the same.
‘When you are cancer free and
finish your chemo, they like
you to ring a bell in the ward as
you leave,’ he said.
‘They say it’s to give other
patients strength and to show
that you can survive it.
‘I am a catholic and when this
is over I will thank god for let-
ting me live. But they want me
to ring the bell and I don’t want
to, if I am honest.
‘What about the people who
will never get to ring it? How
will they feel if I do it? I worry
about them. I really don’t know
what to do.’They would just fg leave
me alone. But they all wanted
to be my friend in the school-
yard didn’t they? Yeh, I could
always play football. But with-
out that ball I was nothing.’
At Chelsea in the mid-1980s,
Thomas didn’t earn enough to
actually live in London. So why
join them?
‘I liked the kit,’ he said, with
only half a smile. ‘Joey (Jones)
was there too and we both
lived in north Wales. So we
drove there and back every
day.
‘I stayed on a Friday before a
game and sometimes slept in
the referee’s room at Stamford
Bridge. He would walk in the
room for the game and I would
be walking out.
‘We stayed in a hotel for the
homeless a couple of times.
Ten pounds a night. Fg
awful.
‘You would wipe your feet on
the way out, not on the way in.
I don’t know how we qualified
for that. Maybe it was the way
we dressed!
‘Joey and I put a notice in the
programme a couple of times,
asking if anyone wanted to put
us up for a night. You think I
am joking. I am not.’
Thomas spent 18 months in
prison in the early 1990s after
being convicted of money
laundering. He has always
maintained his innocence but
it never harmed his after-
dinner patter.
‘When a policeman stopped
me for speeding, he said there
was no point fining me cos who
would really want my money?’
he smiled.
‘But look, jail is a stigma that
will always stick with me. I was
in Walton in Liverpool — not
great as an ex-Man Utd player
— but I was OK. I had to try
and show confidence to make
sure I wasn’t bullied.
‘I learned how to do it and
that helped me a lot in life
when I came out.
‘They were all football fans
inside and that helped too. I
had played for so many clubs I
was popular with just about all
of them...’LAST Sunday, Thomas was
back at Old Trafford for the
United game against Chelsea.
The club sent a car to his home
and drove him back again when
he started to tire with 20
minutes to go.
United have continued to pay
him during his illness and exec-
utive vice-chairman Ed Wood-
ward has written and kept in
touch. He has heard from Chel-
sea and Stoke City too.
‘The club have been amaz-
ing,’ he said. ‘People don’t seethat side of them but Man Utd
sticking with me even when
doctors didn’t know whether
they could save me has been
overwhelming.’
A father of two and a proud
grandfather too, Thomas also
admits that he likes his own
company. That has its draw-
backs, though.
Still in the early days of his
recovery, he worries and why
wouldn’t he?
‘I have prayed most nights,
maybe a walk if I can,’ he said.
‘But the chemo drains you. You
can’t get away from it.
‘When it’s over I will try and
get back to the same person IPICTURE:IAN
HODGSON
ON PRISON
A stigma that
always sticks
with me. I was
in Walton in
Liverpool, not
great as an
ex-Utd player
CAREER HONOURS
WREXHAM
Third Division champions (1977-78)
MANCHESTER UNITED
FA Cup runner-up (1979)
CHELSEA
Second Division champions (1983-84)
Total club appearances 728
Total goals 92
Total Wales appearances 51Total Wales goals 4