M
ickey Thomas walks
into a room at
Wrexham’s Racecourse
Ground and spots a
picture of himself on
the wall. Taken during his first spell
at the club, it shows the former
winger, then with a long, dark mane,
tussling for possession with Arsenal’s
Alan Sunderland in a 1978 FA Cup
quarter-final. Thomas, 67, points out
the photo and says “Mickey T” – as if
the man needs any introduction at
this stadium.
Thomas played for a long list of
clubs, including Manchester United,
Chelsea, Stoke City and Everton, but
Wrexham was always his home. It
was here that he first became a
professional footballer, signing as an
apprentice alongside his best friend
and future Wales international Joey
Jones. He began and ended his
professional career at the Racecourse,
making 326 appearances and scoring
40 goals in the process.
It was also here that, 30 years ago
on Tuesday, a 37-year-old Thomas
fired in a left-footed free kick against
Arsenal that set Wrexham on their
way to one of the biggest FA Cup
upsets. Arsenal were the champions
of England, while
Wrexham had finished
the previous year bottom
of the Football League.
Thomas remembers the
Racecourse scoreboard
being adjusted to allow
for a scoreline of 10 or 11-
0, such was the status of
George Graham’s team.
The gulf in quality was
summed up when
Thomas, Wrexham’s
captain, visited the
referee’s dressing room
before kick-off and found
himself next to an
“immaculate” Graham and Tony
Adams, while he had holes in his
socks. Arsenal went ahead through
Alan Smith in the 43rd minute, but
Thomas produced his moment of
magic from 25 yards in the 82nd
minute to silence the travelling
support. Two minutes later Steve
Watkin turned in Wrexham’s winner
— although that honour is sometimes
mistakenly attributed to Thomas
given the significance of his free kick.
“I only watch it 200 times a day,”
he says. “They were shocked — they
probably didn’t know what hit them.
The great Tony Adams, Paul Merson,
Alan Smith, the goalscorer.. .”
Thomas is used to recounting the
free kick whenever the anniversary
approaches on January 4, but this
year is different. The former Wales
international has just come through
two years of treatment for cancer of
the oesophagus, having been given
the all clear in November. Despite
sitting indoors, he keeps his woolly
hat and puffer jacket on throughout
our interview.It was on a trip to Thailand with
United in 2019 that Thomas first
acknowledged he had a serious
problem. When the former United
captain Bryan Robson saw Thomas
struggling to swallow his food, he
urged him to visit a doctor. Thomas
listened to Robson, who had overcome
throat cancer himself, and two friends,
Mike and Sean Walsh, paid for a
private examination. Thomas was told
he had a large tumour and that there
was a 30 per cent chance of an
operation succeeding.
“Driving from north Wales that
morning of the operation... [I’m]
looking back at the scenery and
thinking, ‘Right, am I ever going to
see this again?’ ” Thomas says.
“It was a 20-yard walk into the
operating theatre. They put me on the
bed, they had to give me an epidural
in my back... I lie down and the guy
who’s going to [give me] the thing to
put me to sleep said: ‘I don’t like to
say this to you Mickey, but I’m a
Liverpool fan.’ I was like, ‘Oh my god,
I might not be waking up now then,’
because obviously Liverpool don’t likeUnited! They’ve moved my
tummy up to my chest,
they’ve sewn it on there,
because what they had
there they took out, so I
can only have small meals
now — I can’t eat a lot of
food at one time.
“They had to break
my ribs. The surgeon
apologised a few days
after, saying, ‘I apologise,
I had to break your ribs
to get the cancer out,’
that’s how big it was.
They broke my ribs and pulled it out
from the back.”
Thomas was put in an induced
coma for three days — probably “the
quietest I’ve been for three days,” he
jokes — and spent 15 days in intensive
care before being moved to a general
ward. He returned home but
contracted sepsis, which meant two
more weeks on a drip in hospital.
While the news of the all clear came
as a welcome boost last month,
Thomas knows the cancer could
return at any time.
During his treatment he received
messages of support from Sir Alex
Ferguson among other football
figures, while the response to
Thomas’s announcement on Twitter
that he was cancer free gave some
indication of how loved he was as a
player. Thomas’s skill and lively
personality made him a cult hero for
both Chelsea and United.
“I like talking, I like communicating
with people, because you mean
something to people,” he explains.
“People remember you. Sometimes
you forget things — they’ll remember.
A football fan never forgets.”Itwasonatript ThilU
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TheybrokemyThomas describes himself as a
“survivor with a smile” in his 2008
autobiography, and that rings true
now. Born in Mochdre, a village in
north Wales, and raised on a council
estate, he rose through the ranks as
part of an impressive Wrexham side
in the 1970s. Thomas helped them to
the latter stages of various cup
competitions, including a European
Cup Winners’ Cup quarter-final in
1976, while they won promotion to
the Second Division in his last full
season in north Wales.
His performances attracted interest
from United, who signed Thomas for
£300,000 in 1978. He was nicknamed
the Welsh George Best — “I couldn’t
lace his boots” — and made 110
appearances for United, reaching the
FA Cup final within six months of
arriving at Old Trafford. But he
struggled with the pressures of
playing for such a huge club, using
drink to ease his nerves on a Friday
night before a Saturday kick-off.
Last month Ralf Rangnick, United’s
interim manager, appointed the club’s
first full-time sports psychologist in
20 years, and the difference with
Thomas’s era is stark.
“I didn’t have anyone there, really,
to confide in, because in my day it
was about being tough and strong,” he
says. “Now in the modern game it’s
accepted about pressure, so they have
people to look after you. In my day,
I had no one to look after me.”
Thomas rarely stayed at one club
for long and sometimes courted
controversy. He was arrested only a
week after his free-kick heroics
against Arsenal for his role in a
counterfeit money scheme, and a year
later was sentenced to 18 months inprison — in effect bringing his
professional career to an end. Thomas
jokes now that he “always wanted to
be an inside forward”, but he admits
those were dark days.
The highs as a player often came
on international duty with Wales.
The former United and Scotland
midfielder Lou Macari once told him
he was a different player for his
country, and Thomas agrees with that
assessment. He felt less burdened
playing for Wales, earning 51 caps
and scoring four goals — including
their first in a 4-1 demolition of
England at the Racecourse in 1980.
Thomas is working to get the national
team back to Wrexham’s stadium,
which he describes as a “proper
football ground”.
He now works for United’s in-house
media team but still attends
Wrexham games. His first club’s
outlook has changed since the actors
Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney
took over Wrexham in February.
McElhenney said last year that
Wrexham should think of themselves
“the way Manchester United think
about Manchester United”, but
Thomas thinks that is a long way off.
He is unconcerned by the injection of
funds, provided it allows his former
club to return to the Football League
after a 13-year exile.
Going into the weekend Wrexham
were third in the National League
and one point off the joint leaders,
Chesterfield and FC Halifax Town.
“If I [could] change my goal [against
Arsenal] for promotion, I’d give it
away now,” Thomas says. “I would
swap that for promotion, because
they deserve it. They’ve given me a
life, they know. I had to earn it, don’t
get me wrong — me and Joey started
at 15 years old — but they’ve given
me that opportunity to be something
that I wanted to be.”
And what’s next for Thomas
himself, after coming through his
two-year ordeal still smiling? “I’m just
continuing living day by day,” he says.
“Every day’s a bonus for me. Alex
Ferguson said on the phone, ‘You’re a
fighter, you’re a tough little lad, you’ll
get through this.’
“So from that respect, I must be
a fighter. I wouldn’t still be around
today [otherwise].
“And have I told you about that
goal I scored against Arsenal?”Thomas, main, has been given the all clear after his operation. Below, the goal that helped to put Arsenal out of the FA Cup‘Anaesthetist said he’s a Liverpool
fan – I didn’t expect to wake up’
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United hero Mickey
Thomas tells Tomás
Hill Lopez-Menchero
about surviving cancer
and that Wrexham goal
Arsenal side they beat
How George Graham's team lined up
against Wrexham on Jan 4, 19924-4-2
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