Denis Thwaites (14 December 1944 – 26 June 2015) was an English professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

who made 86 appearances in the

Football League The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...

for

Birmingham City Birmingham City Football Club is a professional football club based in Birmingham, England. Formed in 1875 as Small Heath Alliance, it was renamed Small Heath in 1888, Birmingham in 1905, and Birmingham City in 1943. Since 2011, the first te ...

. He represented England at

schoolboy A student is a person enrolled in a school or other educational institution. In the United Kingdom and most commonwealth countries, a "student" attends a secondary school or higher (e.g., college or university); those in primary or elementary ...

and youth level. He played as an

outside left Forwards (also known as attackers) are outfield positions in an association football team who play the furthest up the pitch and are therefore most responsible for scoring goals as well as assisting them. As with any attacking player, the role ...

Life and career

Thwaites was born and raised in Stockton-on-Tees, County Durham. As a youngster, he was a member of the Stockton Schools team that reached the semifinal of the

English Schools' Shield English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ...

in 1960, represented his county at under-15 level, and played several times for England Schoolboys. In April 1960, he created a goal for

Bill Atkinson Bill Atkinson (born March 17, 1951) is an American computer engineer and photographer. Atkinson worked at Apple Computer from 1978 to 1990. Atkinson was the principal designer and developer of the graphical user interface (GUI) of the Apple ...

in a 3–0 defeat of Wales Schools; a few weeks later, the favour was returned in a 5–3 win against the Scottish Schools XI, when "England scored within 30 seconds of the start, the ball flowing sweetly from right to left, for Atkinson's centre to be summarily despatched into the net by Thwaites". He joined First Division club

as a 15-year-old in 1960, and made his first-team debut a year later, standing in for

Bertie Auld Robert Auld (23 March 1938 – 14 November 2021) was a Scottish football player and manager. He was a member of Celtic's Lisbon Lions, who won the 1967 European Cup Final. As a player, he made more than 200 appearances in the Scottish Leag ...

in a

League Cup In several sports, most prominently association football, a league cup or secondary cup generally signifies a cup competition for which entry is restricted only to teams in a particular league. The first national association football tournament t ...

loss to

Swindon Town Swindon Town Football Club is a professional football club based in Swindon, Wiltshire, England. The team currently competes in , the fourth tier of the English football league system. The club has played home matches at the County Ground sin ...

in September 1961. He also featured for England Youth between 1961 and 1963. He turned professional in May 1962, and played in several First Division matches at the start of the 1962–63 season, displacing Auld from the side. However he was only a first-team regular for an 18-month spell between 1964 and 1966, and suffered badly from nerves while playing. His last appearance for the first team came in the 1970–71 season, and he retired from professional football in 1972 at the relatively young age of 27. He then had a brief stint with the

Solihull Solihull (, or ) is a market town and the administrative centre of the wider Metropolitan Borough of Solihull in West Midlands County, England. The town had a population of 126,577 at the 2021 Census. Solihull is situated on the River Blythe ...

-based

Rover Company The Rover Company Limited was a British car manufacturing company that operated from its base in Solihull in Warwickshire. Its lasting reputation for quality and performance was such that its first postwar model reviewed by ''Road & Track'' in ...

's team playing in the Birmingham Works League. Thwaites was married to Elaine Stanley, a hairdresser. The couple moved to

Blackpool Blackpool is a seaside resort in Lancashire, England. Located on the northwest coast of England, it is the main settlement within the borough also called Blackpool. The town is by the Irish Sea, between the Ribble and Wyre rivers, and ...

where they raised their daughter, Lindsey, and where Thwaites worked as a hospital porter. A nephew,

Steve Lilwall Stephen Lilwall (born 15 February 1970) is an English former professional association football, footballer who made 73 appearances in the English Football League, Football League for West Bromwich Albion. He also played non-league football for M ...

, played League football for

West Bromwich Albion West Bromwich Albion Football Club () is an English professional Association football, football club based in West Bromwich, West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. They compete in the EFL Championship, the second tier of English foo ...

. While on holiday in

Port el Kantaoui Port El Kantaoui ( ar, مرسى القنطاوي) is a tourist complex 10 kilometres north of Sousse city in central Tunisia. It was built in 1979 specifically as a tourist center, around a large artificial harbour that provides mooring with 340 ...

Tunisia ) , image_map = Tunisia location (orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = Location of Tunisia in northern Africa , image_map2 = , capital = Tunis , largest_city = capital , ...

, in June 2015, Thwaites and his wife were among those murdered in the

Sousse attacks On 26 June 2015, a mass shooting occurred at the tourist resort at Port El Kantaoui, about 10 kilometres north of the city of Sousse, Tunisia. Thirty-eight people, 30 of whom were British, were killed when a gunman, Seifeddine Rezgui, attacked a ...

. A minute's silence was held in their memory on 1 August 2015 before Birmingham City's friendly game against

Leicester City Leicester ( ) is a city, unitary authority and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest settlement in the East Midlands. The city lies on the River Soar and close to the eastern end of the Nation ...

at St Andrew's.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Thwaites, Denis 1944 births 2015 deaths Footballers from Stockton-on-Tees Footballers from County Durham English footballers England youth international footballers Association football outside forwards Birmingham City F.C. players English Football League players English terrorism victims Deaths by firearm in Tunisia Male murder victims Victims of Islamic terrorism English murder victims English people murdered abroad People murdered in Tunisia