Peter Thomas never seemed happier than on a blazing summer’s day by the shores of the Mediterranean. Cardiff, the club he repeatedly rescued from the rocks of bankruptcy, were about to set sail from Marseille homeward-bound with a precious piece of silverware.
The European Challenge Cup final of 2010 had been staged just along the coast from Toulon as if arranged for the anointing of Mourad ‘Moneybags’ Boudjellal, undisputed leader of the nouveau riche hell bent on turning the Top 14 into a rugby version of football’s Premier League.
In contrast to his counterpart’s trademark black T-shirt and matching shades, Cardiff ‘s chairman turned up immaculately suited and booted as usual. Boudjellal sat back expecting his most expensive employees to take care of business.
He had bought Sonny Bill Williams from Australian Rugby League, Tana Umaga from New Zealand, Joe van Niekerk from South Africa and a one-man demolition squad from Argentina in Juan Martin Fernandez Lobbe.
As if that wasn’t enough, Toulon also had an English World Cup winner to run the show, Jonny Wilkinson. Behind the sunglasses, Boudjellal would have been asking himself: How could we fail?
The half-time score reinforced his conviction: Toulon 13 Cardiff 6. Before the end, the team from Napoleon’s old naval port had been holed amidships so badly that Cardiff won going away, as they say in horse racing.
Wilkinson, forced into a premature exit, could only sit and suffer alongside his pay-master. Far from seeing his so-called galacticos bring home the bacon, Boudjellal had been upstaged by a Welshman whose family made their fortune from making pies.
Where Boudjellal would rant and rave at the Establishment over the slightest perceived insult, Thomas had gone quietly about his business of building a winning team for a club whose self-styled nickname, The Greatest, has long been dismissed by others as arrogant self-aggrandisement.
For two years, from losing a Heineken Cup semi-final to the madness of a penalty shoot-out, to winning Europe’s secondary title in Marseille, Cardiff had joined the elite, if only all too briefly.
Over 20 years as chairman, Thomas spent almost as many millions simply keeping the club afloat. Even when he stood down vowing ‘no more’, he kept giving, ensuring wages were paid as recently as a few weeks ago rather than see the club go into administration.
Peter Thomas died last week barely five weeks before his 80th birthday, his dearest wish for a British & Irish League still to be granted. He is survived by his wife, Babs, four children and nine grandchildren.
In a rugby sense, his most fitting epitaph is to be found in his generosity:
Never can so many have owed so much to one man.
