Arriving from Banister Court (where he had been described as a “brilliant” footballer) in the season before the Saints moved to The Dell and won their third successive Southern League Shield, Owen Thomas would remain very much on the fringe of that action. Despite scoring from his full-back position, when making his United League debut at the end of his first season, and then playing in the Reserves’ half-back line in 1898-99, Owen never gained Southern League status.

After leaving Southampton he went to work for the Transvaal Police in South Africa and was awarded a medal for bravery after saving a fellow trooper. Serving in the Welsh Horse Yeomanry at Gallipoli during the First World War he became Assistant Acting Provost-Marshall (Military Police) but died from heart failure brought on by fever. A well-respected figure , a fellow officer wrote

“ I had learnt to have the greatest respect for him both as a fearless soldier and a upright man. Every soldier who passed through his hands realised that he was treated with absolute justice”.

He is buried in the Deir El Belah War Cemetery near Palestine’s Egyptian border. An obituary from the Hampshire Advertiser (22nd September 1917) appears in the scrapbook section.