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Research dossier · People & Ideas

Alexander Thom (footballer)

British association football player (1894-1973)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionNov 3, 2024
Entity authorityQ20712938 ↗
Source-derived summary

Alexander Thom (10 October 1894 – 1 October 1973) was a Scottish footballer who played for Dumbarton, Kilmarnock, Ayr United, Motherwell, Morton, Airdrieonians, Hull City and

Swindon Town.

Editorial summary

Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Alexander Thom (footballer)” is british association football player (1894-1973). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Alexander, Thom and footballer, not as a finished interpretation.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1894, 1973—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. For this dossier, Alexander, Thom and footballer is the immediate research focus.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The phrase “british association football player (1894-1973)” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.

Evidence profile

The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Nov 3, 2024. The linked authority identifier is Q20712938. The first chronological checks are 1894 and 1973.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Alexander Thom (footballer)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Alexander Thom (footballer) primary sources, Alexander Thom (footballer) archive and Alexander research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Alexander Thom (footballer)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which primary records establish identity, chronology and institutional ties?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Alexander Thom (footballer)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.