Vivian John Woodward (3 June 1879 – 31 January 1954) was an English footballer who enjoyed the peak of his career from the turn of the 20th century to the outbreak of the First World War.

He served in the British Army during the First World War, and as a result missed out on Chelsea's run to their first-ever FA Cup final in 1915.

Following spells at Harwich & Parkeston and Chelmsford, he joined Tottenham Hotspur in March 1901,[2] who in the same year would win the FA Cup.

[6] Woodward's debut for Tottenham occurred in the Southern League on 6 April 1901 in a home match against Bristol City which Spurs won 1–0.

[15] At the start of the First World War Woodward enlisted in the British Army and as a result did not play many matches during the 1914–15 season.

At the time, England only usually played three matches a season, for the British Home Championship, but two tours to central Europe in 1908 and 1909 netted Woodward 15 goals (over half his total).

He held the overall England goalscoring record, either jointly or alone, for 47 years – longer than any other player until surpassed by Tom Finney in 1958.

England Amateurs played most of its internationals against the full representative sides of Europe, whose football was much less developed than that of the British at the time, and this huge gap between them often resulted in the Europeans getting trashed by the English, and Woodward would thus often score several goals per match.

[2] Woodward captained Great Britain to gold medals at the 1908 Olympics in London and then in Stockholm in 1912, scoring three goals in 1908, including one in the final, and other two in 1912.