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Bill Thompson (badminton)

Northern Irish badminton player

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJun 27, 2026
Entity authorityQ13481874 ↗
Source-derived summary

Bill Thompson (born c.1956), is a former international badminton player from Northern Ireland who competed at three Commonwealth Games and was a nine-times champion of Ireland.

Biography

Thompson was a member of the Alpha Badminton Club of Lisburn. He represented Ulster at provincial level and the all-Ireland team at international level.

Although primarily a singles player he was also proficient at doubles and partners included Clifford McIlwaine, Rikki Keag and Barbara Beckett. A policeman in Ulster by profession he was the Irish number one ranked player during 1978.

Thompson represented the Northern Irish team at the 1978 Commonwealth Games in Edmonton, Canada, where he competed in the four events. He also represented the Northern Irish team at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane, Australia, where he competed in the four events.

Thompson went to a third Commonwealth Games after being selected for the 1986 Northern Irish team at the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, Scotland, where he competed in the three events. One year later in 1987, he was awarded the Irish Badminton Writers Association player of the year.

Thompson was a nine-times Irish champion at the Irish National Badminton Championships, winning the singles in 1978, 1981 and 1985, the doubles in 1978, 1981, 1982 and 1985 and mixed doubles in 1978 and 1979.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Bill Thompson (badminton)” as northern Irish badminton player. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bill, Thompson and badminton.

Editorial reviewStrongest as a route into the people, institutions and dated events that shaped the subject’s public record. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1956, 1978, 1982, 1986—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1956. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Bill, Thompson and badminton providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Bill Thompson (badminton)”, the useful work is to connect “northern Irish badminton player” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

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 Jun 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q13481874. None of the 1 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1956, 1978, 1982 and 1986.

Critical limits

Public reputation and documentary evidence do not always develop together; absence from a summary is not evidence of historical absence. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. 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 “Bill Thompson (badminton)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Bill Thompson (badminton) primary sources, Bill Thompson (badminton) archive and Bill 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 “Bill Thompson (badminton)”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Bill Thompson (badminton)” 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.