[2] He played non-league football for Epsom Town and Guildford City Youth, before signing a professional contract with Crystal Palace in 1956.

John Joseph Byrne was born in West Horsley, Surrey, to Irish immigrants on 13 May 1939 [3] and he attended nearby Howard of Effingham School[4] As a youth player he represented Epsom Town and Guildford City Youth, though it was his schoolteacher Vincent Blore,[5] a former Crystal Palace and West Ham United player, who alerted Crystal Palace manager Cyril Spiers to Byrne's talents.

[6] Whilst working as an apprentice toolmaker at the age of 15, Byrne attended four trials at Selhurst Park before being signed onto the ground staff.

[7] He scored 17 goals in 45 matches in the 1958–59 season,[10] in which the club became founder members of the Fourth Division and new manager George Smith led the "Glaziers" to a seventh-place finish.

[15] He played eleven games in his first season, scoring a single goal, in a 4–1 home win against Cardiff City, in April 1962.

[15] The 1964–65 season saw West Ham playing in both the 1964 Charity Shield and in European football having won the previous year's FA Cup.

[citation needed] Palace were now in the Second Division but Byrne was past his peak as a player,[5] and after only a year with the club was transferred to Fulham for £25,000 in March 1968.

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.

[12] In November 1961 Byrne was called up to the England 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 against Northern Ireland, part of the 1962 British Home Championship, at Wembley Stadium.

He was a strong candidate to be selected for the 1962 FIFA World Cup in Chile, but he was shunned by the Football Association's selectors after getting involved in a confrontation with former England favourite Don Howe in a league match at The Hawthorns.

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 a Portugal team that included Eusébio.