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 {{England-footy-forward-1940s-stub