This clue referred to the player`s surname - Toms - for two Toms appear in the popular rhyme "Tom Tom The Piper`s Son", which has been sung since the 1790s.
On the surface this one sounds scary, "Tom Tom the piper's son, stole a pig and away he run, the pig was eat and Tom was beat, and Tom went roaring down the street." However the pig was not a real live animal, as is shown in modern versions, it was a cake, which was sold by street tradesmen, at about the time the rhyme was first sung. It seems to have been shaped like a pig, with currants for eyes. So this seems to have been a morality tale warning small children not to steal.
So here we have Mr. E. Toms, or, more correctly, Edward Vincent Toms, who was born in Richmond, Victoria, on the 28th of July 1872. His talent for sport seems to have been picked up on early, and he went to Scotch College in Melbourne on a scholarship which seems to have been a very early version of what we consider a sports scholarship today. At the end of his schooling he was signed for Melbourne, in the Victorian Football Association, and he played for them from 1890 to 1893, then he was injured and skipped a year, returning in 1895. The following two years he played for South Melbourne, which was in the breakaway Victorian Football League.
This card calls him a follower, which is a player who follows the ball trying to get it away from the opposing team. It is unusual to just call him that though, because there are three types of follower, a ruckman. a ruck-rover, and a rover - so it suggests that he could, and often did, play in any one of these three positions as required. It would be useful to know his height though, because the rover is usually the smallest player on the side, and can get into all manner of tight spots to retrieve the ball.
After two years at South Melbourne, he seems to have given up on sport, and he was only twenty five, so maybe the injury returned. Instead he found another interest, teaching, starting in 1896, at two places, one of which was intriguingly called Toms` Business College, so perhaps he started that.
In 1907 he married a local girl, and they had four children, three girls and a boy. And he lived until 1953.
This is part of a group of three sets, and all have now been featured. There is also a home page for the trio, as our Card of the Day for the 12th of October, 2024.
They first appeared in our Australasian Miscellaneous Booklet, RB.20, published in 1951, and the entry for our third part of the set reads :
Series C. Size 67 x 59 m/m. Fronts per Fig.48-C in colour, head and neck studies, in oval vignettes, with yellow surround. Player`s name at base, below vignette. Brown "Magpie" back, with name of player and position in team. Unnumbered series, in two groups as follows -.
In our original World Tobacco Issues Index, published in 1956, the entry is much reduced. All it says is :
AUSTRALIAN FOOTBALLERS (A). Sm. 66-67 x 39-40. ... S38-1
3. Known as "Series C". Head and neck in oval frame. Unnd. See RB.20-48-1.C and X20/48-1.C.
(a) South Australian League Players. 30 known
(b) Victorian League Players. 27 known.
The X20 reference is in the back of the book, and it simply adds one new card, to our Series C, namely "(b) Victorian League Players, add (27) M. Brown, South Melbourne.