Phil Thompson made his debut for Lea Sports as a skinny
17-year-old in a Third Team fixture vs. Toddington Farmers.
He scored that day in a 2-2 draw and hasn't stopped scoring
since. In the mid-eighties illness prevented Phil from
playing regularly, but by the late eighties he reached peak
form and scored 38 goals in 27 games in 1988-89.
In the
early nineties, Phil was lured away from Lea Sports to play
South Midlands football with Ashcroft, but in 1993-94 he
returned with a vengeance, scoring 42 goals in 28 games as
Lea Sports finished 4th in NH Counties Division 2.
His record performance came on 6th November 1988 in a
Division 3 match vs.Holy Ghost at Leagrave Park. Phil scored
7 in a 17-0 win and hit the woodwork 3 times. A few weeks
later, on 18th December 1988, Phil scored his 100th Lea
Sports goal in the return fixture vs.Holy Ghost.
By the late nineties Phil had been persuaded by Steve
Baggett to play for the Third Team in the Luton Sunday
League, but Phil was a class above and scored 45 goals in
1998-99, plus another 10 for the Reserves. In seven games
between 1st November and 1st January he scored 28 goals,
including 2 double hat-tricks.
Restored to the First Team, Phil scored his 500th Lea
Sports goal on 9th February 2003 vs.Limbury Black Swan at
Pirton, a feat rewarded by the Club with the presentation of
a silver salver (see below).
The text reads: Eat your heart out
Michael Owen! Phil Thompson may not be a household name,
but he's a living legend in the North Home Counties.
Over the course of 20 years and 470 games Thompson has
clocked up 500 goals for Lea Sports, writes Ben Raza.
The 37-year-old reached the magical milestone in a
recent game against Black Swan. The march to 500 goals
began for Phil when he scored on his debut against
Toddington Farmers back in November 1982. Then he was
just a 17-year-old in the Club's third team. Since then
he has scored in every division of the North Home
Counties League from the Premier Division down to the
old Division Seven, as well as in the Luton and District
and Luton Sunday Leagues. A Luton Town fan as a boy from
Limbury Mead, Phil's favourite striker was Mick Harford,
although he tried to model his game on Kenny Dalglish
and, more recently, on Tottenham's Teddy Sheringham. In
each of the last nine seasons he has amassed more than
20 goals, including a total of 42 in the 1993/4 season
and a run of three successive four-goal hauls during
2001/2. Phil's personal best is the 55 goal haul from
the 1998/9 season, which included 28 goals in one
seven-game burst. His record for one game is seven
against Holy Ghost in 1988, when he also hit the
woodwork three times. This season Phil has maintained
his usual form. He scored five in an away Herts
Intermediate Cup fourth round tie and the same again in
a 6-1 hammering of league leaders Woodstock. Says Phil,
"I'm happy to keep playing as long as my ankles allow me
and I'm still enjoying it. I'm lucky to play for a team
who are so well-organised that they keep records of
every season otherwise I'd never have known what my
total was over the years. When I went away to University
or moved out of the town I still kept playing for the
side." To mark the feat, Lea Sports presented Phil with
an engraved silver salver, Club Secretary and President
Steve Smith, who made the presentation, said "He's
always been a thin, almost waif-like striker, and very
skillful in the Allan Clarke mould. He's a pleasure to
watch, drifting out of games, then popping up to steal a
goal when you least expect it. Off the pitch he's always
a well-mannered and softly-spoken gent."
Phil's Record (to the end of the 2005-06 Season)
