Early years and West Ham United Puddefoot was born in
Limehouse in the
East End of London. He was a pupil at Park School in
West Ham and played junior football with Condor Athletic and Limehouse Town before joining West Ham United as an amateur in June 1912. He then signed on as a professional in February 1913. Under the tutelage of coach and future manager
Charlie Paynter, he quickly developed into a formidable force and scored 28 goals in 55
Southern League appearances for the club. He broke the club record for most individual goals scored in an
FA Cup match, landing five (including a
hat-trick in seven minutes) in an 8–1 mauling of
Chesterfield in a first-round game on 10 January 1914. The record remains to this day and is also West Ham's biggest victory in the competition.
Wartime Puddefoot worked at a
munitions factory for most of
World War I and was not called up for service until late on in the conflict. He made 126 appearances in the wartime
London Combination and scored 100 goals, including seven against
Crystal Palace in April 1918 (a record for the competition). During his service, he was stationed at
Bridge of Allan in Stirlingshire and guested for
Falkirk during his time in Scotland.
After the war and Falkirk After the end of the war, Puddefoot played in the newly enlarged
Football League Division Two for the
1919–20 season. He scored 21 goals for West Ham that season, and was selected to play for
England in three
Victory International games (he scored in all three). He then scored 29 goals in the
1920–21 season and 14 in
1921–22. Puddefoot's exploits made him much sought after and
Falkirk, who had witnessed the player first-hand, won the battle for his transfer on 7 February 1922. The fee of £5,000 was a
world football transfer record, and represented the only time a Scottish team has broken the record. So eager were the Falkirk supporters to land their man that they themselves set up a public fund to raise money for the purchase. Puddefoot himself earned a £1000 signing-on fee. His younger brother
Len followed him to Falkirk at the start of the following season for a month's trial, but only made a single appearance. The record would last less than a month, however, as
Warney Cresswell was transferred from
South Shields to
Sunderland for £5,500 on 3 March 1922. Puddefoot spent three seasons at
Brockville Park, scoring 45 goals in 113 league appearances. In 1929, Puddefoot was among the first to take advantage of the new
FA rule that allowed for
personal hearings for disciplinary matters, after his
sending off against
Bolton Wanderers. He left Blackburn, having scored 87 goals in 267 appearances in all competitions.
Return to West Ham United On 26 February 1932, ten years after leaving his boyhood club, and at the age of 37, Syd returned to east London to help with the ultimately doomed effort to avoid
relegation in the
1931–32 season. He made seven appearances that season without return, and managed three goals in 15 appearances the following season. He played his 192nd and final game for West Ham on 6 March 1933, scoring the last of his 107 goals for the club. ==International career==