Harold Thompson (chemist)

Sir Harold Warris Thompson, CBE, FRS[1] (15 February 1908 – 31 December 1983) was an English physical chemist and spectroscopist, who also served as chairman of the Football Association.

He was educated at King Edward VII School in Sheffield,[2] then at Trinity College, Oxford, where he was tutored by Cyril Norman Hinshelwood.

He was involved with Oxford University Association Football Club[4] for most of his life, helping to establish the Varsity match at Wembley.

[3] Thompson played a major role in the sacking of World Cup-winning England manager Sir Alf Ramsey in 1974.

[5] Given England's failure to qualify for the World Cup that year, Ramsey's dismissal may have been justified, but the newspapers reported that "the whole episode was handled with brutal insensitivity."

British journalist and author Leo McKinstry wrote that "England's most successful manager would have had a legacy fit for a hero had it not been for the malevolence of the FA chief Harold Thompson.