RIP Barrie Thomas

Passed away over the weekend aged 88. Just before my time but I'm sure some on here will recall how important signing him and Johnny Evans on the same day in 1966 was for BFC.
https://www.scunthorpe-united.co.uk/news/2025/september/in-memoriam-barrie-thomas/

 

RIP Barrie.
A great signing along with Johnny Evans.

 

RIP, my dad always talked about Barrie Thomas and Johnny Evans.

 

I remember him scoring with his fist into the kop end.

 

Great player for the reds in the late 60s. Once saw him score against Donny Rovers after about 40 seconds in the first game of the 67/68 season. There were over 11,000 there for that match and I reckon at least 2,000 missed the goal. Final score was 1-0 as well. RIP Barrie, a grand old age.

 

Sorry to hear this. One of my early heroes.

 

Started our revival

 

R.I.P. Barrie. Without doubt, a saviour of our club in the mid '60's.

 

I didn't know that. I certainly remember Johnny Evans doing that against Rochdale at the Ponty End.

 

RIP Barrie Thomas, fond memories of my first season as a Barnsley fan.

 

Oh no, another one gone. I was privileged to watch this marvellous player, in tandem with John Evans. They lit the fuse at Oakwell and crowds shot up from the 2 or 3,000 mark to five figures in no time. Our club has had a number of revivals over the years and this was the first one that I got to see.

New directors Ernest Dennis and Geoff Buckle invested the considerable sum of £10,000 that allowed manager Johnny Steele to go out and get these two forwards and the transformation was instant. Those dark days in the winter of 1966 were soon a distant memory.

Barrie was a proper old fashioned centre forward who had played in the First Division at St James Park and had proved what a great character he was by signing for an ailing Fourth Division side.

RIP Barrie Thomas. You will never be forgotten

 

Remember him very well. When the team came out for their warm-up before the game, Barry always used to go in front of the goal around the penalty spot and side-foot the ball to the goalkeeper for about 5 minutes, not too sure, but I think the goalkeeper was the ex-English international Ray Wood.

 

RIP Barrie . sad news. There was a great buzz around the town when he and Johnny Evans signed . 10K for the pair of them was it ? Great days. Looks like he scored 211 goals in 338 games , very very respectable.

 

Bit before my time but I’ve heard his name mentioned many times. RIP Barrie….once a Red always a Red.
Edit - some career record, 211 goals in 338 games.

 

I saw Johnny Evans do that in Ponty End. You sure it wasnt him?

 

RIP Barrie one of my first goal scoring heroes.

 

RIP Barrie,
One of my first favourite players along with Johnny Evans and John Bettany, and of course Spud.
Once a Red Always a Red

 

RIP from me too. My original web name on here was 'ThomasEvansRevivalTyke,' but it was too many letters for the new set up, so it reduced to ThomasEvans. The trough into which the club had sunk was just about as deep as you could go and we were not far short of going out of business with the likes of Gateshead and Accrington Stanley. A donation to be spent on players was made by Ernest Dennis and Geoff Buckle, as I recall, and we were able to secure the services of Barrie Thomas and Johnny Evans. In his time, Barrie Thomas was one of the most exciting centre forwards of his time. He scored a hat trick on his debut (I think it was his debut) for Leicester City against Bolton Wanderers, but he could not displace the ageing Ken Leek (?) and was freed to join Mansfield Town. It was a huge error by Leicester, as he scored 48 goals in his 72 games there over two seasons. However, it was when he joined Scunthorpe United that the sparks really few. He scored 67 in 88 games, but that masks the incredible 31 he scored in just 21 games in the 1959-61 season. Every week in the newspaper, it seemed to read Thomas (2). Leeds United wanted to sign him at Christmas 1959, but Scunthorpe said they wouldn't sell him. When Leeds played Scunthorpe over Christmas Thomas rubbed it in by scoring four goals. Scunthorpe were top of the league at the time and what followed was one of the great controversies of that era. The Scunthorpe chairman had said that he would never sell Thomas, but it later turned out that he would have sold him to Leeds, but couldn't get the player he wanted from Leeds as part of the deal. It may have been Johnny McCole, but I am not sure. He then promptly went and sold Thomas to Newcastle United for £45k, which included Jimmy McGuigan coming the other. The Scunthorpe crowds fell and so did the form of the team. They were not promoted to the First Division, as they surely would have been had Thomas been kept. He finished that season with a further ten goals at Newcastle in Jackie Milburn's number nine shirt, giving him forty-one for the season, equal top scorer with Roger Hunt. He had kept the scoring record at Newcastle in his first full season with 20 goal in 25 games, but then got badly injured and finished his season. I think that the injury did affect his future career. Still, a great goal-scorer, he did not quite achieve the better than one every two games which was his hall mark. I was thrilled when we got him from Scunny and he and Evans started the revival, which culminated in our promotion in the following season. Injury finally took its toll and he scored his last goal for us from the penalty spot at Belle Vue against Doncaster Rovers, also setting up Brian Taylor for our winner with a superb reverse pass in our 2-1 win. For me - a player who re-ignited the light in the gloomy days. When we played Southport (top of the league) in the first round of the cup, there was a different atmosphere around Oakwell and boy did Thomas and Evans continue to light the blue touch paper. He played 43 games for us and scored a creditable 19 goals, several of which were memorable and classy.

RIP Barrie. Just great memories, which are shared by a Scunthorpe fan, who is a good pal of mine. Condolences to his family. He was a true star and, although he only played a little over one season's worth of games, he is a legend in my eyes, as he and Evans were the catalyst to the revival. The Woodbines are back again!!

 

Really lovely post. Thanks.

 

Evans and Thomas were the last ditch throw of the dice that saved us from probable extinction. In my mind, it was the seed that led us to the Prem. It was a depressing time. People moan nowadays about this and that, but they don’t know how lucky they are to have a Club to moan about.