Sid Thomas, chairman of Exeter City between 1945 and 1957, was one of the club’s founding fathers having played for both St Sidwell’s United and Exeter City in the amateur era between 1901 and 1908. He then became salaried secretary of the new professional club in 1908 and served in the role until 1939. Aged sixty in 1945, he took on the position of chairman and later became president. He is the only City chairman to be included in the Grecians’ Hall of Fame.   

Sidney Herbert Thomas was born at St Just, not far from Penzance, although his family had moved to Belmont Place, Exeter by the time of the 1891 census with his father working as an insurance agent. Ten years later the family was living in St Sidwell’s Avenue and, with Sid having started work as a solicitors clerk, he was - at the age of sixteen -  a member of the St Sidwell’s United team that played in the club’s first-ever game in 1901. A regular in the team, he became secretary in the club’s second season and continued to help in an administrative capacity when St Sidwell’s became Exeter City in 1904.

Later becoming managing clerk with solicitors Dunn and Baker, Sid scored the winning goal in City’s first game in September 1904 and continued to play for the club during its days in the Plymouth and District League between 1905 and 1908. Recently married to Minnie Burrell - and still a young man in footballing terms - he then became City’s paid secretary in 1908 as the club embraced the professional ranks by entering the Southern League. 

Remaining in position when the Grecians were admitted to the new Third Division of the Football League in 1920, Sid continued to serve as secretary until stepping down around the time war was declared in 1939. By now living in Mount Pleasant Road, and with football activity suspended, he became a director of the club so as to help keep the company in business for the duration of the war. Subsequently, once football started to resume on a more sure footing in 1945, his fellow directors invited Mr Thomas to become chairman of Exeter City.  

As with most clubs there were many challenges to face although the game did benefit from sizeable crowds throughout the late 1940s. Team affairs were in the hands of George Roughton until 1950 and he was followed during the remaining seven years of Mr Thomas’s time in the chair by Norman Kirkman and Norman Dodgin. In terms of results, City’s highest finish during those first dozen years after the war was 9th in Division Three (South) in 1953/54 whilst there were three bottom-four placings and two successive runs to the 4th round of the FA Cup in 1949/50 and 1950/51.

Although the period of Sid Thoma’s chairmanship may be seen as relatively unremarkable, it may well have represented the type of steady achievement in the full-time game that the initiators of professional football in the city would have willingly accepted fifty years previously. Sid Thomas had been on that journey all the way and, upon retiring as chairman in 1957, assumed the capacity of club president until his death in 1972 at the age of eighty-seven.  

Sidney Herbert Thomas was inducted into the Exeter City Hall of Fame in 2017.