[3] 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.

He made 126 appearances in the wartime London Combination and scored nearly 100 goals, including seven against Crystal Palace in April 1918 (a record for the competition).

[10] 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.

So eager were the Falkirk supporters to land their man that they themselves set up a public fund to raise money for the purchase.

He set up the opening goal in the first minute of the match when he shoulder-charged Billy Mercer, the goalkeeper of opponents Huddersfield Town, with Jack Roscamp following-up to score.

[17] 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.

[3] 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.

[7][20] After the end of his playing career, Puddefoot travelled to Turkey to coach at Fenerbahçe, where he teamed up with József Schweng, the club's first foreign manager.

[16] He was survived by his wife, Lillian (née Frankland), and daughter, Susanne Puddefoot (1934–2010), a journalist who edited the Times Women's Page in the 1960s.