Everyone at Aberavon RFC will be sad to learn of the death at the weekend of our former wing Ken Thomas aged 87. Ken or Matey as was his well known and much used nickname was a prolific try scorer for Aberavon scoring over 100 tries in total for the club. Also in his two seasons at Cardiff he scored 15 tries in 39 games gaining his Cardiff club cap in his first season there in 1957/58.
In the Aberavon championship side of 1960/61 he scored 26 tries in that one season, a fast wing he was a Wales trialist and was considered very unlucky not to have been capped at international level. In his very first season at Aberavon he played in the Combined Aberavon/Neath side that were narrowly beaten 5-11 by New Zealand at the Gnoll where he marked the experienced All Blacks wing Ron Jarden.
Ken was a huge character, he was always great company with a wonderful way of recounting memories of games he played in, he was a very popular man and will be sorely missed by his daughter Karen, his family and many friends to whom we send our sincere condolences.
There will be a minutes silence in his memory before the home game V Pontypridd this Saturday.