THE man most people knew as CWT will be remembered in a gathering at Moree Cemetery later this month to acknowledge a plaque on his gravesite.
Charles William Thompson – ‘Charlie’ to many – passed away in 2017.
He was an amazing man, who stumbled into Moree by accident in 1963.
Charlie was heading north to Queensland in search of house-painting work, but pulled up in Balo Street for a coffee and a casual look at the local paper.
It was only a small advertisement, tucked away in the classified pages, but enough to make the journeyman realise Moree might very well be his new home.
The town needed a junior rugby league coach. The house-painter sipped his coffee and considered the advertisement.
Those few minutes changed Charles William Thompson’s life forever – and the town of Moree became much richer for having this Westmead Boys’ Home old boy as its newest resident.
At 9am on Saturday, May 31, people are invited to again say hello to their old friend and mentor at Moree cemetery.
A plaque has been placed on Charlie’s grave to remember the man who changed the lives of so many people.
One of Charlie Thompson’s proudest moments was carrying the Olympic Torch when it made its way through Moree in the Year 2000.
Charlie’s close friends, Terry Picone and Tammy O’Connor, are organising a get-together to commemorate the occasion.
Terry said the plaque has been a long time coming for CWT.
“Charlie has now got his own plaque, and we’d love to see as many people as possible come along and again say hello to a great man,” Terry said.
“It’s something we’ve been planning for a while, and I’ve got Lauren Winkley and Tammy to thank for keeping the ball rolling.
“I know there are a lot of old footballers and cricketers out there who owe their sporting careers to Charlie.”
Afterwards, everyone is invited for coffee and morning tea at Café 61.
Tammy O’Connor asks those planning to meet up at Café 61 afterwards to please RSVP by midday, Thursday, May 29 (contact details at the end of this article).
Over the decades, CWT, a moniker coined by league legend Stan Jurd, painted Picone-owned properties in Moree a few times over, and formed close friendships with all family members.
“Charlie was a close, family friend for many, many years and people still talk about how he changed their lives for the better,” Terry said.
“He worked for the family for a lot of years and often got more paint on his glasses than the walls,” he laughed.
Charlie Thompson (top left-hand corner) as a team member of the Westmead Boys’ Home First XI cricket team in 1948.
Westmead Boys’ Home
CWT was born at Walgett in 1932, but from the age of four spent his childhood and most of his youth at Westmead Boys’ Home in Sydney.
It was this sometimes sad and lonely upbringing that many say was the reason he wanted to help so many kids for so many years.
CWT simply wanted the kids of Moree to enjoy their childhood, and he reckoned the best way to do that was on a cricket field or rugby league paddock.
Over more than half a century, CWT nurtured hundreds of fledgling young sports stars in Moree.
And, after learning the rudimentary skills during their younger years, many reached the highest levels attainable in their chosen sport.
CWT, with the help of blokes like Rodney Skaines, Stuart Holland, Jock King, Ron Harborne, Danny Shearer and Peter McGregor, guided thousands of young players through the ranks at Saturday morning junior rugby league at Taylor Oval.
Roy Masters tribute
In the 1980s, St George Dragons coach Roy Masters wrote in a column for the Sydney Sun, that he didn’t know Charles William Thompson from Adam.
“But there is one first-grade player in Sydney that believes CWT should be Coach of the Year this year, next year, and for that matter, every year after,” Masters wrote.
That player was Stan Jurd, who related CWT’s unheralded achievements to Masters one balmy afternoon over an after-game cold one.
“In the summertime, Charlie would sift through the talents of 70 or so young cricketers and organise them into teams of equal ability,” Jurd told Masters.
“The cricket matches always ended in a draw. Nobody ever lost and it didn’t seem all that important that nobody ever won, either.
“When wintertime came around, Charlie would organise the youth of Moree into a football competition and the same would apply,” he said.
Masters wrote that the most important measure of a rugby league coach was his contribution to – and influence on – the technique of the game.
“The quality of the man himself is revealed in the attitude of his former players after they outgrow the awed hero-worship of their schoolboy days,” Masters said.
“After the boys who played for him became men, CWT remained a hero.”
CWT, a torch bearer when the iconic symbol made its way through Moree in 2000 for the Sydney Olympics, once said one of his proudest coaching moments was watching many of his young protégés bring home the 1973 University Shield for Moree.
“Nearly every Shield team member was a product of our Saturday morning football comp,” Charlie said in 2003.
“Sometimes we’d have 600 kids weigh in, so no wonder it produced good players . . . Moree was a real rugby league town in those days.
“I used to coach the Saints, which included the Peachey twins (Peter and Paul), John Brooks, Peter Butler, Stephen Jones, Harry Allen and Tony Dean – all Shield team players,” he said.
“When they won the Shield, I was especially proud of Stephen, Harry and Tony. I coached them for five years when they were kids and they were a good backline combination, and that showed at Gosford.
“That’s how good rugby league players are made,” Charlie explained.
“The more you put them on the field together the better they become, and that’s how it was with all those boys.”
Coach Charlie Thompson congratulates Grahame O’Connor at Moree Junior Cricket presentations in 1973 as Cookie Raveneau waits his turn. It was Grahame’s first trophy but one of many in the years to come in both junior, senior and representative cricket.
How legends were made
Many of CWT’s junior league and cricket stars are now firmly etched in sporting history books.
Elite players the likes of Merv Muggleton (Balmain Tigers), Terry Quinn (Penrith Panthers), Stan Jurd (Parramatta Eels), David Jurd (President’s Cup and Petersham first XI), Peter and Paul Peachey (South Sydney Rabbitohs), Dennis Kinsella (St George Dragons), Mark Ryan and Matthew Ryan (Canterbury Bulldogs), Mike Egan (Western Suburbs Magpies), Paul Roberts (South Sydney Rabbitohs), Phillip Duke (Western Suburbs Magpies and St George Dragons), Stephen Little (South Sydney Rabbitohs), Richard Rice (St George Dragons), Greg McElhone (Australian under-16s), Mark Wright (Newtown Jets), 1973 University Shield Man of the Match Tony Dean and representative cricketer Grahame O’Connor were all taught by CWT.
When CWT made that snap decision in 1963 to call Moree home, rugby league was at the top of every kid’s list of weekend activities.
This was an era when the game ruled Moree; there wasn’t much interest in cricket during the summer months.
But it wasn’t long before CWT had scores of kids padding up every Saturday, playing in 16 teams.
Stan Jurd’s brother, Robert, played under-23s for Newtown Jets as well as third-grade cricket for Petersham-Marrickville Cricket Club – thanks the CWT – and says the man credited with starting junior cricket in Moree was well ahead of his time.
“Charlie Thompson virtually invented sponsorship in Moree,” Robert said.
“He would go around the town and approach all the businesses and ask them to sponsor the teams. That made sure that all the kids had shirts and caps and all the equipment.”
Ties that bind
The Jurd family invited Charlie to live with them when he arrived unheralded in Moree, and the ties that bind never faded.
Another brother David, who became a cricketing champion – some say legend, especially David – under the guidance of CWT, remained arguably his old coach’s best mate and most trusted confidant.
“Charlie came to live with us when Robert was about nine or 10 and for the next eight or so years he was our mentor and our coach – our life coach,” David said.
“And, when it came to birthdays and Christmases, we never, ever got toys off Charlie – only sporting equipment.
“I remember taking Charlie down to Sydney once for a reunion with his mates from the boys’ home. “He’d just carried the Olympic Torch through Moree and had been named Moree Citizen of the Year.
When he got up and spoke, all his mates were so proud of him – that’s one of the fondest memories I have of Charlie,” he said.
“Many children in Moree who were born in the late 1940s or 1950s owe a lot to Charlie. We weren’t all in poverty but were all from humble beginnings, and none of us had a great deal of money.
“Charlie arrived in Moree when junior league had just started and coached for nine years and won seven junior premierships.
“He started junior cricket off on his own bat and then he started up a chess club when he got too old to do all those other things,” David said.
Former rep cricketer, Grahame O’Connor, also remained firm friends with his old coach and mentor.
“I don’t think there is anyone in Moree that did more for junior cricket and league than Charlie,” Grahame said.
“It was his whole life and, really, it was all he lived for.
“Everyone I know grew up with Charlie and everybody knew him; from the early days down at St Philomena’s doing football drills and learning how to tackle, learning when to tackle and learning how to run – and then in summer we had cricket,” he said.
“If you didn’t listen, Charlie would soon tell you, if you didn’t want to be there you could go.
“But you didn’t have to be a special cricketer or footballer; you just had to be there and listen and learn – and if you did listen, then you learned.”
CWT was just as good a cricketer as he was a coach, Grahame said.
“He asked me one day – I was only 11 at the time – to come down and do some fielding at Bloomfield Oval, and I had the honour of watching him score his first century,” Grahame said.
“He told me he had a good feeling that he might get 100 runs that day. I doubted him, and told him, but that’s exactly what he did – and he was 42 at the time.”
Grahame said CWT’s good will at Christmas time reflected his old coach’s tough childhood.
“Charlie loved Christmas and each year he would approach store-owners for small things that he could wrap up and give to the kids – there could be 20 or 30 or 40 kids at a time,” he said.
Charlie Thompson with St Philomena School’s representative chess team at Gunnedah in 2003.
Chairman of the board
In later years, when the old bones just couldn’t cope with a football or cricket bat any more, CWT continued helping the kids of Moree – using a humble chess board and years of wisdom.
In 2001, CWT formed the Moree Junior Chess Club and his new group of budding champions had no need for a bat or ball – just a chess set and the willingness to open their minds and discover the thought-provoking moves of one of the world’s oldest and most intriguing games.
Under CWT’s guidance, the club began making opening gambits at Moree’s Catholic Parish Hall and, to use a term befitting Moree’s most revered junior sports coach, CWT took the ball and ran with it. Only a bloke like CWT could get nearly 100 schoolkids together on a Saturday afternoon for a game of chess.
“About 90 percent of the kids had never laid eyes on a chess board until they joined the club,” CWT said in 2002, when this writer had the privilege of penning a feature article about Moree’s newest Chairman of the Board.
At the club’s inaugural presentation night, CWT’s awards format didn’t differ much from his days at Taylor Oval, either.
Every kid involved received some form of recognition for their achievements.
Again, it wasn’t a case of who won or who lost.
“Trophies for encouragement and improvement are just as vital as those for winning,” CWT said.
Charles William Thompson died in 2017, but his memory and the indelible mark he left on cricket pitches and rugby league fields in Moree will last forever.
As the legend, Roy Masters, said: “After the boys who played for him became men, CWT remained a hero”.
Words: Bill Poulos (this article has been rewritten from a tribute penned when CWT passed away in 2017).
Remembering Charlie Thompson
When: Saturday, May 31, 2025
Where: Moree Cemetery, and afterwards at Café 61 for coffee morning tea.
Time: 9am
Contact: Tammy O’Connor on 0429 151637. Tammy asks those planning to meet up for coffee at Café 61 to please RSVP by midday, Thursday, May 29.
Everyone welcome
I’m sincerely sorry I cannot make it to this wonderful occasion. I knew Charlie as a boy mainly through his cricket coaching and in my early 20s playing lawn bowls. Charlie was one of my father’s best friends and euchre partner. They won the Moree Bowling Club euchre championship 3 years in succession, some say they gave each other signals but I knew both men were too honest to do such a thing. I hope plenty of people attend and honour a wonderful person. RIP Charlie.