Thomas Astley Horace Hamond (17 August 1845 – 5 February 1917) was an

association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

player and

solicitor A solicitor is a lawyer who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and enabled to p ...

, who won an

FA Cup The Football Association Challenge Cup, more commonly known as the FA Cup, is an annual Single-elimination tournament, knockout association football, football competition in domestic Football in England, English football. First played during ...

runner-up medal in 1875. HamondBrothers OfWestAcre Norfolk Circa1890

Personal life

Hamond was born in

Swaffham Swaffham () is a market town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in the Breckland District and England, English county of Norfolk. It is situated east of King's Lynn and west of Norwich. The civil parish has an area of and in the U ...

Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...

, the son of Anthony Hamond, who was lord of the manor of West Acre in the county. He attended

Eton College Eton College ( ) is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school providing boarding school, boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, Berkshire, Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated Prime Mini ...

and played in first-choice elevens in both codes of Etonian football - for the

Field Field may refer to: Expanses of open ground * Field (agriculture), an area of land used for agricultural purposes * Airfield, an aerodrome that lacks the infrastructure of an airport * Battlefield * Lawn, an area of mowed grass * Meadow, a grass ...

XI and the Oppidan side in the Wall Game in 1863. Team-mates in both sides included future

Old Etonian Eton College ( ) is a public school providing boarding education for boys aged 13–18, in the small town of Eton, in Berkshire, in the United Kingdom. It has educated prime ministers, world leaders, Nobel laureates, Academy Award and BAFTA ...

players

Edgar Lubbock Edgar Lubbock LLB (22 February 1847 – 9 September 1907) was an English amateur footballer who twice won the FA Cup and played first-class cricket. He later became a partner in the Whitbread Brewery, a director and Deputy Governor of the Ban ...

and Quintin Hogg. Hamond matriculated at

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Mary ...

in 1864, and was awarded his degree in 1868. He was awarded a Distinction in his Law Society finals in 1870 and became a solicitor, practising in

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, commonly known as Lincoln's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for Barrister, barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister ...

fields, eventually inheriting the lordship of the manor. Hamond never married and left an estate of £37,528.

Football career

The first report of Hamond playing a non-Etonian code of football comes from November 1866, when he appeared for "Eton" - an Old Etonian side - against old boys from

Harrow School Harrow School () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school (English boarding school for boys) in Harrow on the Hill, Greater London, England. The school was founded in 1572 by John Lyon (school founder), John Lyon, a local landowner an ...

in a goalless draw played under "

University A university () is an educational institution, institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several Discipline (academia), academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly ...

" rules. His first recorded game of association football was for the Gitanos against the First Surrey Rifles in February 1875; his second was the 1875 FA Cup final replay. The Etonians had suffered an injury crisis after the original game against the

Royal Engineers The Corps of Royal Engineers, usually called the Royal Engineers (RE), and commonly known as the ''Sappers'', is the engineering arm of the British Army. It provides military engineering and other technical support to the British Armed Forces ...

, losing four players after the first match, and Hamond was drafted in to play on the right wing alongside Lubbock. Perhaps significantly, four other players who were in the Old Etonians side had also played for the Gitanos against the Riflemen ( Arthur Kinnaird, Henry Home-Drummond-Moray, A.C. Thompson, and Francis Wilson), so they had been able to assess his abilities first-hand. (One other member of the Gitanos' side was J. H. Giffard, who was the umpire nominated by the Royal Engineers.) Hamond, who had been the oldest member of the Etonians side, played twice for the Gitanos in 1875–76; once in a defeat to the Wanderers at the

Kennington Oval Kennington is a district in south London, England. It is mainly within the London Borough of Lambeth, running along the boundary with the London Borough of Southwark, a boundary which can be discerned from the early medieval period between th ...

, and once in a 12-a-side match at

Barnes Barnes may refer to: People *Barnes (name), a family name and a given name (includes lists of people with that name) Places United Kingdom * Barnes, London, England ** Barnes railway station **Barnes Bridge railway station ** Barnes High Stree ...

which ended goalless, but there is no record of him playing afterwards. His association career therefore lasted four matches; three for Gitanos, in which his side never scored a goal, and one FA Cup final.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hamond, Thomas 1845 births 1917 deaths Men's association football forwards English men's footballers Old Etonians F.C. players People educated at Eton College People from Swaffham Footballers from Norfolk Gitanos F.C. players English solicitors