Ernest Rixon Phythian (16 July 1942 – 3 August 2020) was an English professional
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby le ...
who played as a
striker
Striker or The Strikers may refer to:
People
*A participant in a strike action
*A participant in a hunger strike
*Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant
*Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America
People wi ...
. Active between 1960 and 1968, Phythian made over 250 appearances in
the Football League
The English Football League (EFL) is a league of professional football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in the world. It was the top-level football league in Engla ...
, scoring nearly 100 goals.
Early and personal life
Born in
Farnworth, Phythian was related to footballer
Jimmy Seddon
Jimmy Seddon (20 May 1895 – October 1971) was an English footballer who played most famously in the centre of defence for Bolton Wanderers during the 1920s.
For Bolton he played 375 games in all completions, scoring 5 goals, he also collected ...
and referee
Ken Seddon
Kenneth Richard Seddon (1950–2018) was a chemist specialising in ionic liquids.
Biography
Seddon was born in Liverpool in 1950. He studied chemistry at Liverpool University, completing his PhD in 1973, then took up a research fellowship at the ...
.
Career
As a child he captained Farnworth Schoolboys and played for Lancashire Schoolboys.
He also played cricket for North of England Schools and for various clubs around Bolton.
He began his career with
Bolton Wanderers
Bolton Wanderers Football Club () is a professional football club based in Horwich, Bolton, Greater Manchester, England, which competes in . The club played at Burnden Park for 102 years from 1895 after moving from their original home at Pike's ...
as an amateur at the age of 15, initially combining his football career with work as an apprentice toolmaker.
He made his first-team debut in 1960, aged 17.
He later played for
Wrexham
Wrexham ( ; cy, Wrecsam; ) is a city and the administrative centre of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is located between the Welsh mountains and the lower Dee Valley, near the border with Cheshire in England. Historically in the count ...
and
Hartlepools United
Hartlepool United Football Club is a professional association football club based in Hartlepool, County Durham, England. The team competes in League Two, the fourth tier of the English football league system.
They were founded in 1908 as Har ...
before moving to South Africa to play with
Southern Suburbs.
He was also an England Youth international.
Later life and death
He died on 3 August 2020, aged 78, in
Johannesburg
Johannesburg ( , , ; Zulu and xh, eGoli ), colloquially known as Jozi, Joburg, or "The City of Gold", is the largest city in South Africa, classified as a megacity, and is one of the 100 largest urban areas in the world. According to Demo ...
, South Africa.
References
1942 births
2020 deaths
People from Farnworth
English footballers
Bolton Wanderers F.C. players
Wrexham A.F.C. players
Hartlepool United F.C. players
English Football League players
Association football forwards
English expatriate footballers
English expatriates in South Africa
Expatriate soccer players in South Africa
England youth international footballers
Southern Suburbs F.C. players
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