Vivian John WOODWARD

Vivian Woodward was a skilful solo dribbler, an intelligent distributor of the ball and could play in any of the three inside-forward positions with equal facility. The England selectors readily recognized his talents, awarding him 15 of his 23 full international caps while he was playing for a non-league club. He scored a total of 29 goals, which remained an England record until 1958 when both Tom Finney and Nat Lofthouse brought their international tally up to 30. Woodward twice scored four goals in a full international and achieved the hat trick on two other occasions. He also played in 44 amateur internationals – including the 1908 and 1912 Olympics – scoring a total of 58 goals. His finest performances came in England’s first amateur international against France in Paris in 1906, when he scored eight goals, and against Holland in 1909 when he scored six times. Woodward won his first Olympic gold medal while serving as a director of Tottenham Hotspur which most surely constitutes a record for a director of a Football League club. When he was on the winning Olympic team for the second time in Stockholm four years later he had already passed his 33rd birthday and he remains, to this day, the oldest footballer ever to win an Olympic gold medal. Vivian Woodward maintained his interest in football long after he ceased playing and was director of Chelsea from 1922 to 1930.