James Marshall Seed (25 March 1895 – 16 July 1966) was an English footballer and football manager.
Despite being born in Blackhill, Seed was brought up in the village of Whitburn on the coast just to the north of Sunderland, the family moving when Seed was two years old.
Playing career
On leaving school at fourteen, Seed worked at Whitburn colliery and when he reached sixteen played football in the Wearside League for Whitburn, along with his brother Angus who would have a short professional career with Leicester Fosse. After scoring over eighty goals for Whitburn, Seed had unsuccessful trials at South Shields and Sunderland. However, Sunderland manager Bob Kyle decided to give Seed a second chance, this time playing him at inside right instead of centre forward in a North Eastern League match against Wallsend. Seed scored a hat-trick in the match and was promptly signed by Sunderland as a professional in April 1914.
Sunderland and First World War
Seed spent the 1914–15 season playing in Sunderland reserves, he scored plenty of goals as the team lifted the Durham Senior Cup. Competitive league football was suspended at the end of that season because of the outbreak of World War I. At the end of the season, the 20-year-old Seed joined the Army Cyclist Corps. In the summer of 1916, he was drafted to France with the 8th battalion of the West Yorkshire Regiment. In July 1917 Seed was gassed when a German aeroplane dropped mustard gas bombs over Nieuwpoort, Belgium. Seed was with other soldiers sheltering in the basement of a bombed out building when the gas seeped in. Over fifty of his comrades died in the incident. He was sent to England to convalesce and returned to France in August 1918, until being evacuated after being gassed in Valenciennes, France two months later. With the cessation of hostilities, Seed played a Victory League match for Sunderland against Durham City in 1918, however his lungs were weak and he had a poor game. On the strength of that performance the Sunderland directors decided that Seed's wartime experience had finished him as a footballer and let him go, although they did not put him on the transfer list as they thought his lungs were too damaged. Seed never played an official first team game for Sunderland. He was discharged from the army in March 1919.
Mid Rhondda
Seed's football career was rescued by former Wales international Haydn Price, the manager of Welsh non-League team Mid Rhondda, who were based in the town of Tonypandy. Price offered Seed a chance to play for the south Wales club, which Seed accepted, and he signed for them in July 1919. Seed joined former England international Joseph Bache and ex-teammate from Sunderland Frank Pattison in the Mid-Rhondda side and they had a successful time in the seven months that Seed was with them, winning both the Southern League Division Two and Welsh League titles. Seed's good form attracted the attention of Tottenham Hotspur manager Peter McWilliam and in January 1920 he signed for the north London side for a fee of £250, a move which caused some antagonism amongst supporters in Tonypandy.
Tottenham Hotspur
After initially playing five games in the reserves Seed got his first team chance with Spurs, making his debut at inside right and forming an immediate understanding with the legendary, diminutive right winger Fanny Walden. Seed played five games in the remainder of the 1919–20 season, scoring two goals as Spurs ran away with the Second Division title. Seed was a virtual ever present for Spurs in the following seven seasons in the First Division. The 1920–21 season saw Tottenham lift the FA Cup, with Seed playing in all six matches in the cup run, scoring five goals, including a hat trick against Bradford City in the second round. Just two months after getting his cup winners medal Seed was called up for the first of this five England caps on 21 May 1921 against Belgium, he never got a long run in the international side, playing his final game in April 1925.
1921–22 saw Tottenham finish runners up to Liverpool in the First Division, with Seed scoring ten goals in 36 appearances. In February 1927 Peter McWilliam resigned as Spurs manager, being replaced by Billy Minter. Minter decided that the 32-year-old Seed was reaching the end of his career, and with a young Taffy O'Callaghan ready to take his place, he cut Seed's wages from £8 to £7 a week. Seed's reaction to this was to ask to be released by the club at the end of the 1926–27 season and after looking like taking the player/manager job at Aldershot, he eventually signed for The Wednesday in a part exchange deal involving Darkie Lowdell and a cash adjustment paid by Spurs.