Lance Corporal Wilfred Toman
358176, 2nd/10th Battalion, The King’s (Liverpool) Regiment
Wilfred Toman was a Bishop Auckland born centre-forward who started his career north of the border with Aberdeen and Dundee before returning south to play for Burnley in 1896. In sixty appearances for the Turf Moor side he averaged a goal every other game, and by 1899 he had moved to Everton for a record fee of £100, where he scored nine goals in twenty-seven games before switching to Southampton for the 1900-01 season. There he played alongside former Evertonians Edgar Chadwick, Alf Milward and George Molyneux, winning the Southern League title. On his return to Goodison the following season, he scored in his first game, but in the following match he sustained a career ending injury. He did attempt a lower league comeback, but by 1909 he had retired from the game.
He found work as a purser with White Star Line to Australia, but in 1916 at the age of forty-two, he was conscripted into the King’s (Liverpool) Regiment. Quickly promoted to lance corporal, he was in France by 22 February 1917.
While in the front line near Bois Grenier, near Armentières, he was badly wounded by enemy shelling and died shortly afterwards on 2 May 1917. He was laid to rest in Erquinghem-Lys Communal Extension Cemetery.