Shakers look to local leagues - Bury Times - Friday, 29 December 1995:
HE MAY share a famous footballing name and be following in the footsteps of one of the brightest young stars in English soccer but Shakers' new-boy Peter Thomson is well aware that his footballing future is in his own hands. For the eighteen-year-old striker, picked up from local Manchester League outfit Stand Athletic last month, has been handed a golden opportunity to make a career in the game after impressing in a series of trial matches. The former Castlebrook High School pupil last week signed a contract to the end of the season and, if he continues to shine as he has in a hand ful of A team and Reservi. appearances, a glittering future could be on the cards. "It's down to me now. I've got until the end of the season to prove myself so if I can keep scoring and improve my game anything could happen," he explained.
"They have a brilliant coaching staff here at Gigg and with the likes of Walter Joyce helping me become a better player, I've just got to work hard and see how it goes." Hailing from Whilefield^s Hillock Estate, an area that boasts QPR and England Under-21 star Trevor Sinclair as a former resident. Thomson stands a strapping six-foot-three and thirteen and a half stones. He has a good touch for a big man, i.s quick and has an eye for goal. Like Sinclair, he played his formative soccer for the school teams at Castlebrook and, from the age of nine, with Unsworth in the Bury and Radcliffe Junior League. A move into open aged soccer took him to Manchester Amateurs and Mostonians in the Lancashire Amateur League but this season he was persuaded to follow his brother Paul to Stand Athletic before a friend, who knew Joyce, the Shakers' youth team coach, recommended him for a trial at Gigg Lane. A hat-trick in his initial trial match raised eyebrows then further goals in A team run-outs against Tranmere Rovers and Marine marked him down as a player of considerable promise. Last week he notched for the Reserves in a 3-2 defeat at Chesterfield and that was enough to convince the Shakers' backroom staff to offer him a six-month contract.