Vivian J. Woodward - For Club and Country

Tottenham Hotspur and Chelsea’s Vivian Woodward was arguably football’s first unconventional striker.

Avant-garde forwards are commonplace in today’s game, with Dennis Bergkamp and Eidur Gudjohnsen just a couple of examples of players refusing to bow to convention.

However, unlike his modern counterparts, Woodward was also an architect and dairy farmer who served on the Western Front during the Great War of 1914-1918.

Captivating crowds at the turn of the 20th century, he captained his country to Olympic glory twice before a career, which was admittedly reaching its swansong, was disrupted by the war to end all wars.

“He was a goalscorer, that was his big skill, but he was also very tactically minded”

Becoming a top-level athlete is a dream harboured by millions of young men and women, so the amateur-professional debate, rife in the early 1900s, seems baffling in the 21st century.

Stranger still is the choice by Woodward, one of the greatest strikers of his generation, to remain as an amateur rather than to reap the rewards of the professional game.

Woodward’s biographer, Norman Jacobs, suggests his reasons for not turning professional: “he was an architect by profession and wanted to stay as one.

“I think he thought that if he was tied down as a professional and being paid by the football club, he’d have to do what they wanted… and he was too much of a free spirit in a way.”

A studio portrait of Woodward – Published in Vivian Woodward – Football’s Gentleman, by Norman Jacobs

Despite apparently harbouring no desire to shake off his amateur status, Woodward enjoyed success in the professional game both domestically and internationally.

After joining Tottenham in 1901 from local side, Clacton Town, it wasn’t long before he began to stand out, often dropping deep to link up play with his fellow strikers as either an inside-right or centre-forward.

Jacobs explains: “He was a goalscorer, that was his big skill, but he was also very tactically minded… Vivian Woodward was very aware of what was going on and was able to adapt.

“I think that’s why he liked playing inside-right, rather than being responsible for scoring the goals, he wanted to direct the forward line.”

Making the Grade on the International Stage

Woodward’s abstract style of play attracted the attention of the England selectors and he made his debut in 1903 as the only amateur in the side.

One of the benefits of his non-professional status was soon apparent when he captained Great Britain to a gold medal at the 1908 London Olympics and then again four years later in Stockholm.

Jacobs jokes that playing at the Olympics must’ve been a walk in the park: “He was head and shoulders above everyone else playing there because he was a full international playing with professionals.”

Woodward (Front row, centre) wins Gold with Great Britain at the 1908 Olympics

This success at the Stockholm Olympics almost didn’t materialise after Woodward had announced his retired from football in 1909.

However, he was reminded of a promise made to Chelsea’s Director that he would turn out for the club if they were ever in need of players.

“I think they were bottom of the league at the time… originally his intention was to come back to help them out over this period” Jacobs explains.

“But once he got back in he carried on playing for them.”

He continued with the West-London club until the outbreak of war in 1914 when he joined the territorial army, chances to play for the Blues subsequently became sporadic at best.

Nevertheless, despite lacking their talismanic striker, Chelsea managed to reach the 1915 FA Cup Final.

The club gained permission from the army to select him, but Woodward refused to play on discovering that he would replace teammate Bobby Thompson who, after initially being side-lined through injury, was declared fit to play.

According to Jacobs, Woodward’s moment of generosity wasn’t out of character: “That’s the sort of person he was, it was the only chance he had of playing in a cup final… it was every footballer’s dream.”

Unbeknownst to many, thanks to this selfless act, Woodward had sacrificed one of his final opportunities to play at the highest level of football.

Woodward receives his 1912 Olympic Gold Medal from King Gustav of Sweden. Published in Vivian Woodward – Football’s Gentleman, by Norman Jacobs

Serving on the Western Front:

“The Footballer’s Battalion came out of the wide controversies around the professional football season against the backdrop of criticism of it going ahead,” National Football Museum collection officer, Alex Jackson, explains.

The idea: to create a pal’s battalion comprised of 200 professional players from over 60 different present-day clubs alongside fans, amateurs, referees and officials.

Throughout the course of the war, around 4,500 men served in the battalion with around 20 percent expected to have been killed.

One particularly bloody engagement came during the Somme Offensive in 1916 around Delville Wood, colloquially known as Devil’s wood.

Jackson highlights the extent of the fighting in that area: “There were so many shells fired… that it’s still inadvisable to walk off certain paths around it”.

Woodward, promoted to the rank of Captain at this point, wasn’t one of the casualties at Deville Wood, mainly because he had already been injured in the leg by a grenade in January 1916.

“They thought it would take about six weeks, but it was about six months”, Jacobs says of Woodward’s recovery period back in England.

But after taking further heavy casualties at the battle of Cambrai, the 17th Middlesex Regiment, like many pal’s battalions, was disbanded in February 1918 with the men redistributed to other units.

Woodward subsequently became a physical training instructor until the end of the war, when he once again had to assimilate into everyday life.

Jackson highlights the difficulties that many footballers experienced on returning home: “there is definitely a sense of loss but probably more of an impact was the loss of professional careers.

“Some people’s careers end early because, by the time they come back they’re older or are tired out from military service… it’s a different kind of loss.”

Post-War Life:

Football’s first truly unconventional forward, fittingly enjoyed an unconventional retirement.

Woodward played a few more times for Chelsea after the war but soon retired from top-level football, briefly turning out for his first side once again, Clacton Town.

Whilst undertaking a role as a director at Chelsea until 1930, he once again benefitted from his amateur status when he was able to fully devote his time to architecture.

His love affair with the Olympic Games continued off the pitch too, when he designed the main stand for the Antwerp Stadium, the main arena for the 1924 games.

However, Woodward transferred his unconventional on-pitch style, to his post-football career too, when he quit his trade to set up a dairy farm.

“As far as I know, (the family) weren’t involved in the farming business at all… I think that was just his idea” Jacobs amusingly admits.

Following some Air Raid Precautions work during the Second World War, Woodward began to suffer from what was described as nervous exhaustion.

Despite there being very little in terms of a support network for ex-professionals, the Football Association arranged for him to go to a nursing home in Ealing, where he died in 1954.

Jacobs says with surprise: “It was the FA rather than his own family who looked after him there.

“His family were around, but he didn’t have any direct family.”

And so, Woodward, arguably football’s first truly unconventional forward, fittingly enjoyed an unconventional retirement.

While his story is less known, his unique style bridged the gap between Victorian football and the Herbert Chapman era of the 1920s, offering an unforgettable contribution to modern football as we know it today.