Player, Manager, Administrator
Thomas Henry ‘Tom’ Holford
Birth: 15th March 1866 • England
Death: 2nd October 1938 • Norwood, South Australia
Migrated to Australia in 1881 from Hanley, Staffordshire, England. Tom’s father William Holford was born in Hanley, Staffordshire, in about 1841 and that he arrived in Australia with his wife, Annie, and son, Thomas Henry, in about 1878 in Sydney, then moving to Adelaide in 1887 when Tom was 21 years old. William Holford was a noted potter and ran various pottery businesses in Adelaide. The celebrated master William Holford taught his craft to his son Thomas Holford, and together they established Federal Pottery and then London Pottery in Maylands.
Did Tom first learn about football while in Sydney?
Tom was a member of the first unofficial SA select team that played the crew of HMS Ringarooma in July 1893. He also represented SA in its first ever interstate match against Western Australia in 1905 at Adelaide Oval, then aged 39 years.
Owner of a pottery works where most of the employees, of which he was leader, were involved in soccer prior to the first league competition in 1903.
Founder Member, first Chairman and President of the South Australian British Football Association in 1902.
