 Byrne pictured inCape Town, South Africa, in the early 1970s. | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | John Joseph Byrne | ||
| Date of birth | (1939-05-13)13 May 1939 | ||
| Place of birth | West Horsley,Surrey, England | ||
| Date of death | 27 October 1999(1999-10-27) (aged 60) | ||
| Place of death | Cape Town, South Africa | ||
| Height | 5 ft 9 in (1.74 m)[1] | ||
| Position(s) | Striker | ||
| Youth career | |||
| Epsom Town | |||
| Guildford City | |||
| Crystal Palace | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1956–1962 | Crystal Palace | 203 | (85) |
| 1962–1967 | West Ham United | 156 | (79) |
| 1967–1968 | Crystal Palace | 36 | (5) |
| 1968–1969 | Fulham | 19 | (2) |
| 1969–1973 | Durban City | 69 | (22) |
| 1980 | Hellenic | 1 | (0) |
| Total | 484 | (193) | |
| International career | |||
| 1961–1962 | England under-23 | 7 | (4) |
| 1961–1965 | England | 11 | (8) |
| *Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
John Joseph Byrne (13 May 1939 – 27 October 1999) was an English professional footballer who played as astriker. He was nicknamed "Budgie" due to his constant chattering.[2]
He played non-league football forEpsom Town andGuildford City Youth, before signing a professional contract withCrystal Palace in 1956. He joinedWest Ham United in 1962, and spent the next five years with the "Hammers". He returned to Crystal Palace in 1967, before joiningFulham the following year. He emigrated to South Africa in 1969 and spent four years withDurban City. He went on to coach in South Africa for many years, and turned out as a player forHellenic in 1980.
He won seven caps for theEngland under-23 team, before scoring eight goals in eleven fullEngland internationals between 1961 and 1965.
John Joseph Byrne was born inWest Horsley,Surrey, to Irish immigrants on 13 May 1939[3] and he attended nearbyHoward of Effingham School[4] As a youth player he representedEpsom Town andGuildford City Youth, though it was his schoolteacherVincent Blore,[5] a formerCrystal Palace andWest Ham United player, who alerted Crystal Palace managerCyril Spiers to Byrne's talents.[6] Whilst working as an apprentice toolmaker at the age of 15, Byrne attended four trials atSelhurst Park before being signed onto the ground staff.
Byrne made 14 appearances forCrystal Palace during the1956–57 season, scoring once as the "Glaziers" finished 20th in theThird Division South.[7] He signed a professional contract on his 17th birthday in 1956,[8] and made his debut in October of that year.[5] He scored seven times in 28 matches in the1957–58 season,[9] as Palace finished in 14th place.[7] He scored 17 goals in 45 matches in the1958–59 season,[10] in which the club became founder members of theFourth Division and new managerGeorge Smith led the "Glaziers" to a seventh-place finish. In 1959–60 Byrne scored 16 times in 42 matches as Palace finished eighth in Division Four.[11][12] He requested a transfer, and an asking price of £20,000 was demanded by the club.[12] On 15 October 1959, he scored two goals as Palace recorded aclub record 9–0 victory overBarrow.[13]
After a steady first two seasons, Byrne became a first team regular, and was popular with the Palace fans. In the1960–61 season, Byrne scored 30[5] of Palace's 110 goals (his strike partnerRoy Summersby netted 25), as Palace reached theThird Division. He left Palace having scored 96 goals, then a post-war record.[citation needed]
Following this, he did not stay a Third Division player for long, and theFirst Division beckoned, asRon Greenwood paid a Second DivisionBritish record transfer fee[2] of £65,000 to take "Budgie" toWest Ham United in 1962. Greenwood would later compare Byrne with Argentine footballer,Alfredo Di Stéfano.[14] The fee being made up of £58,000 plus ex-Palace strikerRon Brett who was valued at £7,000.[15] Byrne's debut came on 17 March 1962 in a 0–0 draw atHillsborough againstSheffield Wednesday.[15] He played eleven games in his first season, scoring a single goal, in a 4–1 home win againstCardiff City, in April 1962.[15]
The1962–63 season saw him score 14 goals in all competitions, only one behind leading scorerGeoff Hurst.[16] In the1963–64 season he beatBobby Moore, who finished second, to the "Hammer of the Year" award for the season, as West Ham won theFA Cup.[17][18] Byrne had amassed 33 goals from 45 games in all competitions for this season overtaking Hurst as top goalscorer. This included FA Cup goals in the fourth round againstLeyton Orient, the fifth round againstSwindon Town and two in the sixth round againstBurnley.[15]
The1964–65 season saw West Ham playing in both the1964 Charity Shield and inEuropean football having won the previous year's FA Cup. West Ham and1963–64 league champions,Liverpool, shared the Charity Shield having drawn the game atAnfield, 2–2 with Byrne scoring one of the West Ham goals.[19] In Europe West Ham competed in the1964–65 European Cup Winners' Cup. Byrne scored in the first round againstLa Gantoise, the third round againstLausanne and a goal in the semi-finals againstReal Zaragoza.[20] Unfortunately, for Byrne, he was injured in the England-Scotland match a few weeks earlier[5] and did not play in the final againstMunich 1860 atWembley Stadium which West Ham won 2–0[15]
In the1965–66 season West Ham were again in European football as holders of the Cup Winners' Cup. They also reached the1966 League Cup Final. Again Byrne was on the scoresheet in the Cup Winners' Cup, in the second round againstOlympiacos, the third round againstMagedeburg and in the semi-final againstBorussia Dortmund where they were eliminated from the competition. He scored five goals in six games in the League Cup including one in the first-leg of the final againstWest Bromwich Albion which West Ham won 2–1. Albion won the second leg, atThe Hawthorns, 4–1 to take the trophy by an aggregate score of 5–3.[21] Byrne finished the season with 17 goals in all competitions, someway behind Geoff Hurst, who, on the verge of his 1966 World Cup victory, scored 40 goals in 59 games.[22]
Byrne left West Ham in February 1967, returning to Crystal Palace for £45,000.[5] scoring one goal (14 appearances) in his first season back[23] and four goals in 22 appearances in 1967–68.[24] This took his total for Palace to over 100 goals putting him 4th on Palace's all-time scorers list at the time.[citation needed] Palace were now in theSecond Division but Byrne was past his peak as a player,[5] and after only a year with the club was transferred toFulham for £25,000 in March 1968.[5]
Byrne's time atFulham, was largely the unsuccessful, as the club suffered relegation in both 1968 and 1969, leaving it in theThird Division. Byrne played only 19 games, (some of them at half-back)[5] scoring twice, in that time, before signing forDurban City, in June 1969.[5]
Byrne played for Fulham for only one full season before moving to South Africa, to play for the now defunct Durban City, alongside some of his former Fulham teammates, such asJohnny Haynes.
He became manager ofDurban City, but spent most of his coaching career at Cape Town clubHellenic FC. He even played for them during an injury crisis in 1980, coming on as a late substitute in a league match against Johannesburg club Dynamos just short of his 41st birthday. He also coached at Cape Town Spurs and for Michau Warriors in Port Elizabeth. Spurs was his last job in 1998.
Byrne played for England at both youth andunder-23 levels.[1] He became the firstFourth Division player to win a cap for the under-23 side.[12]
In November 1961 Byrne was called up to theEngland team, despite playing outside the top two divisions at the time, one of only five post-war players to achieve this.[25] Byrne played the whole of the 1–1 draw againstNorthern Ireland, part of the 1962British Home Championship, atWembley Stadium.
He was a strong candidate to be selected for the1962 FIFA World Cup inChile, but he was shunned bythe Football Association's selectors after getting involved in a confrontation with former England favouriteDon Howe in a league match atThe Hawthorns.[26]
He got his first (and second) England goal in the 1–8 win overSwitzerland. On 16 May 1964, possibly Byrne's greatest achievement came, as he scored a hat-trick, in Lisbon, in England's 4–3 win over aPortugal team that includedEusébio.[27]He missed out on a place in the eventually victoriousEngland squad, at the1966 FIFA World Cup.
Byrne married Margaret when he was 18 years old.[7]
He died suddenly following a heart attack in Cape Town on 27 October 1999, aged 60.[2]
His son Mark played for Hellenic andCape Town Spurs. Later he was president of Hellenic. He died in 2021.[28]
West Ham United
