who scored 357 goals in 516 matches. He is the record holder of top scorer awards with six and record league goalscorer for
Tottenham Hotspur still, with 220. The
Football League Division One from 1888 through to the end of the 1991–92 season and now the
Premier League, make up the top tier in English football. During these 137 years three players have scored over 300 goals, with another 25 scoring over 200 goals. A further three players were a goal shy, finishing on 199 goals. The first was
Sheffield Wednesday's Andrew Wilson whose career was interrupted by
World War I but went onto make 501 appearances. In the mid-sixties,
Bobby Smith retired after scoring 23 in 74 for Chelsea and 176 in 271 for Tottenham, and finally ten years later,
England legend
Sir Bobby Charlton, left Manchester United after making 606 appearances.
Derby County forward
Steve Bloomer was the first player to score over 300 goals, his record of 314 stood for over half a century. In 14 years, he scored 240 goals in 376 matches in his first stint at Derby County before moving to
Middlesbrough where he scored 59 in 125 games for the Boro. After five years on Teesside, he returned to Derby who were in the second division then. He spent two years in the second division scoring 38 goals before the Rams won promotion. In his final two seasons he scored a further 15 goals in 34 matches, a total of 255 in 410 appearances for Derby County.
Everton striker
Dixie Dean came very close to breaking the record, he scored 349 league goals all for Everton, however 39 were scored in the second division, leaving him 4 goals behind. Bloomers' achievement was finally surpassed when
Jimmy Greaves broke the record scoring 357 goals, playing for
Chelsea,
Tottenham Hotspur and
West Ham United. For Chelsea he scored 124 goals in 157 appearances, only
Frank Lampard 147,
Roy Bentley 130, His top flight career ended at West Ham United, where he scored 13 in 38 matches. In the
Premier League era,
Alan Shearer sits top, but even with his full tally of 283 goals, he still trails. Four more "modern day" players, who have played in the Premier League make the list,
Wayne Rooney, scored 177 goals, the same as
Frank Lampard and two more than
Thierry Henry, but his last 23 goals sees him in 365th place in the Premier League. and
Matt Le Tissier (jointly ranked 71st), both scored 161 goals, 11 more than
Michael Owen who is eleventh on the PL list. Beardsley is in 97th position with 58 goals in the Premier League while a lack of centurions, assists Le Tissier's ranking. Losing 61 goals improves his overall position, ranked 34th in the
Premier League with 100 goals.
Ray Charnley who both had 190 goals,
Peter Harris, who scored 192 goals for
Portsmouth,
Stan Mortensen who scored 197 goals for
Blackpool,
George Elliott who scored 198 goals for
Middlesbrough and the three players mentioned above who all scored 199 goals. Kane, ranked 19th, became only the 28th player in 136 years of league football to join the elite 200 club, who, in the summer of 2023, signed for German club
Bayern Munich.
First Division/Premier League top 50 goalscorers Lee Chapman holds the record of most top flight clubs scored for with eight.
Andy Cole played for eight clubs also, but only scored for six.
Marcus Bent is another player to play for eight top flight clubs, again only scoring for six. A name that does not appear on the top scorer list is
Arthur Rowley, the record holder for the
most goals in league football, scoring 434 goals in 619 league games. Arthur's brother
Jack Rowley scored 173 goals for
Manchester United and is ranked 50th, shown above. Arthur however didn't play much top flight football in his career, but he did score 51 goals in 95 matches. In one season at
Fulham he scored eight in 34 appearances and then later hit 43 in 61 appearances over two seasons for
Leicester City. == Clubs top scorer in top tier ==