Is there any web page that lists the top scorers in the EPL (and predecessors) for all time? Today, I think the announcer said that Andy Cole is the 2nd leading all-time at 249 goals. Does that mean of active players? Do I recall that Sheringham has scored over 300? Where is Shearer? Are we only counting league goals? What about Cups, Europe, etc.? Dick.
Of course the EPL is not that old so it may be interesting to see where Shearer and the rest stand all time for the top division.
Check www.rsssf.com. I believe Alan Shearer is probably in the lower end of the top ten all-time scorers list for the English top flight. To put things in perspective, the First Division/Premiership's all-time leading scorer is Jimmy Greaves with 357 goals.
The top scorers including only goals scored in top divisions are listed below from RSSSF -- it only goes 9 deep. GREAVES Jimmy, 357 in '57-'72 (Chelsea, Tottenham, West Ham United) BLOOMER Stephen, 317 in 1892-'10 (Derby County, Middlesbrough) DEAN William "Dixie", 310 in '24-'38 (Tranmere Rovers, Everton) HODGSON Gordon, 287 in '25-'40 (Liverpool, Aston Villa, Leeds United) BUCHAN Charlie, 257 in '12-'28 (Sunderland, Arsenal) LOFTHOUSE Nat, 255 in '46-'60 (Bolton Wanderers) BRADFORD Joe, 248 in '21-'35 (Birmingham City) GALLACHER Hugh, 246 in '25-'38 (Newcastle United, Chelsea, Derby County, Grimsby Town) SMITH Joe, 243 in '11-'27 (Bolton Wanderers) From premierleague.com, the All-Time goals scored in the Premier League are... Shearer, 236 Cole, 157 Ferdinand, 144 Fowler, 139 Sheringham, 136 Yorke, 118 Wright, 113 Dublin, 110 Owen, 110 Le Tissier, 101 I'm sure that Sheringham's goal count are all competitions and all leagues. So that would count any time he may have spent in Div 1 and would count goals scored in FA Cup and League Cup matches. Shearer is probably just outside the top 10 overall, but if he continues at his current pace, he very well could break into the top 9 listed above by the end of the year and will certainly move well into the list by the time he's done in his career. But I think the overall record is not in doubt.
What do the top three scorers off that EPL list all have in common? They all scored a load of goals for Newcastle
So they say on FSW. I guess Shearer can crack the top 5 with a bit of luck. He can get 258. Unless...did Shearer score any in the old Division I? How many? Still, to me, this is like comparing a current baseball pitcher's yearly records to those of pitchers from 100 years ago. It's a different game.
You're right. The only one even close to "modern" on that all time list is the top guy, Greaves, having played in 57 to 72. Newcastle's website reports that Shearer scored 13 goals for Southampton in 91-92 (the year before the Premier League started) and they were in Division 1 that year. So that gives him 249 and puts him in 7th on the all time list right now. 5th is definitely within reach this year.
I just found a biographical website that lists Shearer as having played with Southampton from 87/88 thru 91/92. In addition to the 13 goals in 91/92, he had 10 more goals prior to that season. Southampton were in Division 1 in each of those years, so that gives him a total of 259 in the top flights and 5th place overall and needing 28 goals in the next year and a half to make 4th. It's not inconceivable, but it's a lot.
I don't think that these totals include FA Cup or League Cup goalscoring. Otherwise, the totals would be much higher for some of these players. For instance, Michael Owen has scored 110 Premiership goals (He scored 1 goal in 96/97, 18 in 97/98, 18 in 98/99, 11 in 99/00, 16 in 00/01, 19 in 01/02, 19 in 02/03 and (so far) 8 in 03/04). I imagine that Alan Shearer has scored well more than 300 goals in all club competitions (European and domestic cups), probably closer to 400, in addition to the 34 or so for England.
According to the BBC website, Alan Shearer has scored 161 goals for Newcastle, 130 for Blackburn, and 43 for Southampton in all competitions, making 334 club goals in total. He scored 37 for England. The reasons why strikers scored more goals in the past include the prevalence of more attacking formations in the old days, the absence of an offside rule, and a larger number of teams in the top division, as it was a 22 team league most of the time.
Are you sure about that??? I have a vague memory of reading about some player having a huge goalscoring season in the 1920's because they changed the rule from 3 men to keep a player onside to 2.
When I said that I was sure Sheringham's goal count was for all competitions -- I was responding to someone asking about him have 300 goals -- not commenting on the 136 I listed. The 136 goals listed for him were all EPL just like the 110 listed for Owen. Sorry for the confusion.
In the way-past, soccer was much LESS attacking minded -- in the early rules, you could not make a forward pass to another player. The only way to progress forward was to dribble. As for the absense of the offside rule, except for one set of rules used by the Sheffield Association, there has ALWAYS been some form of the offside rule. Whenever there have been changes to the offside rule, it has been to the benefit of attacking soccer, so all other things being equal, we should be continuously seeing more and more goals scored. In the first set of "unified" rules in the 1860's, a player was "off his side" if less than 3 players were between him and the goal. That rule was changed in 1925 to make it only 2 players. The number of goals scored over the same number of games changed from 4700 to 6373 on this change. So guys like Bloomer, Buchan & Smith are at the top of this list despite have played under a MUCH more stringent offside rule. In 1990, an attacker was considered onside if he was level with the 2nd last defender. Prior to that, they had to be behind the 2nd last defender. As far as the number of teams in a league, that could have an impact. I know that in some sports, they used to play more games and therefore had an opportunity to score more goals within their playing years. For example, prior to things like Champions League, the domestic leagues could have more teams and therefore play more games.
The number of goals per game is less than it was in the past. This is clear from the scoring records in the World Cup. I don't have the figures to hand, but I have seen them, and the pattern is very clear: I believe more than five goals a game were scored in the early World Cups. In the old division 1 in 1903/04, 3.06 goals a game were scored. Not such a dramatic difference, but still significant. I have never heard about the "no forward pass" rule. When did that apply? Are you sure you are not thinking of rugby? In any case, a dribbling based game was not necessarily less attacking than the modern game, if the formation played made it more likely that the attackers would outnumber the defenders. I don't know the details of the changes to the offside rule before the recent ones, but my dad complains that the strikers had more freedom when he was young. I suspect that the rule changes effected the pattern of play in complex ways. If you were wholly right, the decrease in the number of teams would have to account for the reduction on its own, but there were never more than 22 in the top division. And some of the old players would have scored even more if the league hadn't halted for the two World Wars.
For me the thing that makes Shearer's record all the more remarkable is the fact that the has missed almost THREE seasons of his career with three serious career threatening injuries but has still came back to bang them in. It shows great desire and character.
Another point worth making is that Shearer has always played in England. Most other prolific scorers played for foreign clubs at some point in their career eg. Lineker, Rush, Keegan, Law, Hughes, Charles