The footballer Tommy Wright, who has died aged 81, was at Everton’s defensive heart when they won the English league championship in 1970, playing every game of the campaign with admirable composure at right-back. Four years earlier he had also featured prominently in the club’s triumphant run to the FA Cup final in 1966, which they won against Sheffield Wednesday.

On the international stage Wright appeared for England in the 1968 European Championship finals as they beat the USSR 2-0 in Rome to win bronze. But his best moments came at the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico, where he played in two of England’s four games: the opener against Romania and a thrilling second against Brazil, where Wright commended himself against the combined threats of the superstar players Pelé, Jairzinho and Rivellino.

Although Wright’s match against Brazil proved to be his last in an England shirt – partly due to a knee injury that led to his retirement fairly soon afterwards – the 11 international caps he did accrue came during an era when competition for places was perhaps the strongest it has ever been.

For Everton he hardly missed a game in league or cup competitions once he had established himself in 1965. Despite his enforced early departure from the game, he ended up with 373 appearances at full-back, a club record in that position until broken by Leighton Baines in 2017.

Born in the Norris Green area of Liverpool, Wright was the son of Mary and Jack, and was an Everton fan from the outset, watching his first match at Goodison Park as a seven-year-old. After he was picked for Liverpool Schoolboys while at secondary school in Croxteth, Everton signed him as a 15-year-old apprentice, initially at inside-right before moving to right-back, where he exhibited attacking instincts in defence that were soon to become fashionable.

The manager, Harry Catterick, gave him his first-team debut in 1964 as a 19-year-old in a Fairs Cup match against the Norwegian side Vålerenga. An accomplished tackler and comfortable on the ball, he also had great athleticism, which, combined with a calm temperament, meant he could make adventurous forays forward without any damage being done to the team effort, returning swiftly to his base in defence.

Within a year or so Wright had become a regular in the side, playing on the opposite wing to the great left-back Ray Wilson, with whom he appeared, at the age of 21, in the 1966 FA Cup final, fighting through agonising cramp in the closing stages as Everton came from two goals behind to win 3-2.

Two years later he played in another FA Cup final at Wembley, an unexpected 1-0 defeat to West Bromwich Albion. But there was consolation that summer when he was picked by Sir Alf Ramsey for England’s 1968 European Championship finals campaign in Italy, sitting on the bench as they lost 1-0 to Yugoslavia before winning his first cap, aged 23, against the USSR in the third-place playoff match at the Stadio Olympico.

Appearing in all 42 matches of the 1969-70 First Division title-winning season, with Everton comfortably topping the table ahead of Don Revie’s Leeds United, he was then named in the squad for the upcoming World Cup finals in Mexico. It was there that he became the first England player to come on as a substitute in a major tournament, when he replaced his Everton team-mate Keith Newton, who had picked up an injury in the 49th minute of the 1-0 victory against Romania.

With Newton unable to get back to fitness for the Brazil match, Wright played all 90 minutes of that entertaining encounter, having an excellent game as England nonetheless went down 1-0. However, he had to make way again for Newton in the final two matches, the second of which ended in a 3-2 quarter-final loss to West Germany.

Having missed just a handful of league games in the previous five years, after 1970 Wright was dogged by knee problems, and was absent for significant chunks of the next two seasons. He played his last Everton match against Wolves in April 1973, hobbling off the field before announcing his retirement at the age of 29, having been granted just seven clear years in which to shine.

After football he worked for many years at Garston Docks in Liverpool, latterly as an operations supervisor in the general cargo department. A quiet, humble man, he maintained his strong links with Everton as an ordinary week-in, week-out spectator on the terraces, where he was regarded by fellow fans as one of the club’s finest.

With his second wife, Edna, whom he married in 1980 after a divorce from Gwen, he enjoyed regular holidays in their favourite spot in Çalış, Turkey.

He is survived by Edna, two of his four children, six grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

• Thomas James Wright, footballer, born 21 October 1944; died 20 January 2026