Lewis Edward Buxton is an English former professional footballer who played as a defender. Buxton began his career with Portsmouth where he progressed through the youth ranks at the club. He gained first team experience with loan spells at Exeter City and Bournemouth. He joined Stoke City in January 2005 in order to find first team football. His time at the Britannia Stadium was hampered by injury and he left for Sheffield Wednesday in October 2008. With the Owls Buxton established himself as a regular member of the team and spent seven years, making 207 appearances.
Career
Portsmouth
A promising young defender, after working his way up through the Portsmouth youth ranks, Buxton made his first team debut at the beginning of the 2001–02 season, aged 17, in a 1–0 win at Stockport County. He was soon a regular in Graham Rix's squad. However, following Harry Redknapp's appointment as manager at the club, and the subsequent influx of new players, Buxton found games harder to come by. He was loaned out to Exeter City for October 2002, but upon his return to Fratton Park still found the competition too great. In January he was loaned to A.F.C. Bournemouth for the remainder of the season. He played 18 games whilst at Bournemouth, and helped them achieve promotion. He returned to Portsmouth for the 2003–04 season, but by October he was again not in the first team picture, and so returned to Bournemouth for the season, this time playing 28 games for the Cherries. It was a similar story during the 2004–05 season when Buxton failed to break into the team on a regular basis.
Stoke City
After turning down several loan offers he decided to call time on his Portsmouth career and transferred to Football League Championship club Stoke City in January 2005. He scored his first senior goal in Stoke's 3–1 defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in September 2005. He was sidelined for the first 2 months of the season due to a back injury, but he made his first start of the season in Stoke City's 1–0 win at Ipswich Town as a centre-half. However, he required an operation on his back, which kept him out for the remainder of the 2006–07 season. He since recovered and was ready for pre-season training, prior to the start of the 2007–08 season. He made his comeback as a substitute for Stephen Wright in the 33rd minute of Stoke's 2–1 win over Charlton Athletic on 18 August 2007. Buxton only appeared fleetingly in the 2007–08 season, however he impressed when called upon putting in a man of the match performance against Queens Park Rangers.
Sheffield Wednesday
On 17 October 2008 Buxton moved to Sheffield Wednesday on an initial one-month loan deal. This was made a full deal on 26/01/09 after Buxton expressed his desire to leave Stoke and move to Wednesday. He signed a -year contract. On 31 January 2009, Buxton scored his first goal for Wednesday against Birmingham City. He has played in many different positions at Hillsborough. These are Right Back, Left Back, Centre Back, Right Wing and Centre Midfield. He achieved promotion to the Championship with Wednesday in May 2012. In 2012–13, Buxton was voted player of the year by the Sheffield Wednesday supporters. This was following a consistency across over 40 games in a regularly changed Wednesday defensive unit. Buxton was released by Wednesday at the end of the 2014–15 season.
In June 2015 Buxton signed for Rotherham United on a one-year contract with the option of a further year. After Rotherham had succeeded in surviving from relegation in the Championship, finishing one place above the drop in 21st, the club decided to opt in not keeping Buxton for a further season, and instead let his contract run out, releasing him.
On 5 August 2016, following an unsuccessful trial with Charlton Athletic, it was confirmed that Buxton had agreed a one-year contract to join Bolton Wanderers. On 11 May 2017 the club confirmed that Buxton would be leaving at the end of his contract on 30 June. Buxton retired from playing football after leaving the Trotters.
