Ernest Frank Thompson played some games for Port Adelaide reserves just before the First World War.
He joined the AIF in January 1916, as a clerk aged 20. He was the son of Thomas Turner Thompson, chairman of the Port Adelaide soccer club from 1910 to 1914. After the war his father served as chairman of the South Australian British Football Association from 1920 to1924. T. T. Thompson was a prominent trade unionist and went on to be a Member of the SA House of Representatives from 1927 to 1930. He founded a short lived “Protestant Labor Party”.
Both sons of Tommy Thompson joined the AIF. Ernest, the soccer player, enlisted in January 1916 and trained as a driver in the field artillery. He was born in Adelaide, as was his father. He went to France with the 21st reinforcements to the 2nd Field Artillery Brigade. After seeing some action he became seriously ill with pleurisy, and was returned to Australia in July 1917. He was discharged, still in poor health, in October 1917.
Ernest Thompson died at Port Adelaide in 1926, aged only 31. His older brother had been killed at Villers-Brettoneux.