One of the Ovens and Murray Football-Netball League's larger than life characters and trainer of Stawell Gift winners has died after a long running health battle.
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Ray Thomas, who died late last week, aged 80, was also an accomplished sportsman in his own right, playing four matches for Collingwood, premiership player and best and fairest winner with Albury Tigers and third placegetter in the 1969 Morris Medal behind Wangaratta's Jeff Hemphill.
After a 197-match career beginning in 1956, which included Albury's 1966 grand final win against Wangaratta, Thomas was head trainer for the Tigers for more than three decades.
In summer his sporting focus shifted to athletics, training men's Stawell Gift winner Jarrem Pearce, and women's Gift winner, Rebecca Foster, both from the border.
He also made a Stawell Gift final, won the Burramine Gift at Yarrawonga and trained alongside the legendary Bill Howard, who won back-to-back Stawell Gifts in 1966-67.
Thomas was inducted into the O and M Hall of Fame in 2007, soon after he suffered a stroke.
Michael Buchanan, who joined the Tigers in 1995 as a player and two years later coached the club to a third successive premiership, said Thomas was a much-loved figure at Tigerland.
But the relationship between coach and head trainer had its moments.
"We had a disagreement one day and he packed his bag and said he was going," Buchanan said.
"I said 'good, go', but he was back on Monday night and we were best friends again.
"He understood the game because he played a lot of footy himself.
"But he was a real character.
"He would listen to the races on the sidelines and didn't get out on the ground too much in his latter years.
"If it wasn't real serious he would send someone else out, ensuring he didn't miss the race finish."
But it wasn't only Albury players who were the beneficiary of his training talents.
"His door was always an open door," Buchanan said.
"I remember going in one night to get a rub and (Wodonga Raiders player) Simon Bone comes walking out the door.
"It's the type of bloke he was, he would help anyone."
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Thomas also loved to sledge opposition players and saved some of his finest barbs for the best players such as Wangaratta Rovers superstar Robbie Walker.
"He always got a reaction as well," Buchanan said.
Pearce created history when he won the 2000 Stawell Gift as a 16-year-old Wodonga school boy.
"He was a very integral part of my athletic career," he said.
"I only started training with him because my brother trained with him and someone else trained with him and through his dedication it enabled me to become an athlete.
"With him donating his time there would be dozens of kids across the border in the same boat.
"He was the first to training and last to leave.
"Five or six days a week we were training with between 10 and 20 people there at any given time."
Funeral details are still to be confirmed.
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