John Butcher

John Butcher may refer to:

See also

John Butcher (English footballer)

John Butcher (born 27 May 1956, Newcastle upon Tyne) was a professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He played in The Football League for five clubs.

Playing career

Butcher began his career with Blackburn Rovers, who he turned professional with in March 1976. He made more than 100 league appearances in six years at Ewood Park, the majority coming in seasons 1977–78 and 1978–79. He moved to Oxford United in July 1982, although he was loaned out to Halifax Town three months later and then had a temporary spell with Bury from December 1983.

After not playing for Oxford during the 1983–84 season, Butcher was allowed to join Chester City on a free transfer in August 1984. He made his debut on the opening day of the new season against Scunthorpe United and went on to play 36 first-team games during the season. The following campaign saw Butcher have spells out of the side after losing out to David Kaye and Ray Cashley and he was allowed to return to Bury for another loan spell in October 1985. A month later he was back at Chester and missed just three of the final 29 games as the Blues were promoted from Division Four. The summer of 1986 saw Billy Stewart signed by Harry McNally and he was to largely be first choice ahead of Butcher in 1986–87, whose final appearance for the club was a 1–0 defeat to Blackpool on 4 May 1987.

John Butcher (musician)

John Butcher (born 1954 in Brighton, England) is an English tenor and soprano saxophone player who has lived in London since the late 1970s. He began playing at the University of Surrey where he was studying physics. He received his PhD in theoretical physics with his thesis published as Spin effects in the production and weak decay of heavy Quarks. After that he left academia to focus on music. He began by playing conventional jazz (he has spoken of his initial skepticism concerning free improvisation), but quickly converted to a freer approach. He has taken the concern with the manipulation of multiphonics (split tones and false notes) bequeathed by earlier improvisers such as Evan Parker in new directions: though his earlier albums could be busy at times, he has come increasingly to focus on creating rich, slowly changing strata of sounds (layers of hums, buzzes and brittle metallic noises). He has also experimented with the use of amplified saxophone and overdubbing (most notably on the solo album Invisible Ear). That said, he is also capable of playing quite lyrically: on soprano, especially, he will sometimes leaven a passage of abstraction with bursts of pennywhistle-like melody.