GOALS and THEIR GOALSCORERS........

Joe Payne proved that anything is possible in football. A Luton Town player he had been loaned out to non-leaguers Biggleswade Town, made a couple of League appearances for The Hatters in 1934/35 and four more at the start of the 1935/36 season, all at wing-half. Seven months after his last Football League appearance injury problems saw him selected as centre-forward when Bristol Rovers visited Luton in a Football League Division 3 South fixture on Easter Monday 1936 - April 13th. He scored his first League goal, it was a hat-trick by half time and by the time the final whistle had blown he had scored 10 - the only person ever to score 10 in a Football League match. 'Ten Goal Payne' as he was then known, couldn't stop scoring after that. In all he scored 83 times in 72 appearances for Luton and played once for England (scoring twice) before moving to Chelsea for just £2000 in 1938. A short spell with West Ham followed but sadly a promising career was interrupted by the war and ended prematurely due to injury problems. But surely no-one will take that record from him.

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I'm sure we all remember 'that' goal in England's 2-0 defeat in Croatia on Wednesday 11th October 2006. In the 69th minute of the Euro 2008 qualifier a harmless enough back-pass from Gary Neville hit a divot, bounced up, goalkeeper Paul Robinson kicked air and the ball just continued its progress uninterrupted into the back of the net. The incident just summed up all our frustrations with England at the time (sounds familiar!) with the 2-0 defeat keeping England out of the top two in the group and giving them the summer off when the finals were played.

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William Ralph Dean - Dixie Dean - scored an amazing 349 goals in his 399 League appearances for Everton. 60 of those goals came in the 1927/28 season which is a League goalscoring record which surely will never be beaten. But he left it late needing to score seven goals in the last two matches. Dixie's League goals in1927/28.

The League goalscoring record immediately prior to Dean setting the record -

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The most dramatic increase in goals scored in the Football League took place in the 1925/26 season due to a change in the offside law. Prior to that season defending players had almost perfected the offside trap - Bill McCracken and Frank Hudspeth of Newcastle being the masters - leading to many stoppages for offside and play being compressed into a narrow space either side of the halfway line. Goals and attendances were down and football had started to become boring. The FA had two possible solutions to the problem - to reduced from three to two the number of defending players needed to be in advance of the attacking player for him to be offside or to add a line in each half 40 yards from the goal behind which a player could not be offside. Trial exhibition matches were played and the FA decided on the first option which was recommended to the International Board and adopted for the start of the 1925/26 season.

The changed was dramatic with 6373 League goals being scored in the 1925/26 season compared with 4700 in the previous season - an increase of over a third. And there were some amazing results.

In Division 1 (goals up from 1192 in 1924/25 to 1703) Aston Villa beat Burnley 10-0 on the opening day of the season. Sheffield United had home victories of 11-2 over Cardiff and 8-3 against Manchester City but lost 4-7 at Bury and 1-6 at Sunderland. In addition to that defeat Manchester City also lost 5-6 at Bury but won 6-1 at Manchester United and at home had their own 8-3 victory against Burnley, beat Leicester 5-1 but lost 1-5 to Huddersfield!

In Division 2 (goals up from 1068 to 1487) Darlington at home beat Portsmouth 7-1, Clapton Orient 6-0 and Sheffield Wednesday 5-1 but away from home lost 2-5 at Chelsea and 1-6 at both Port Vale and Stoke. Apart from that victory over Darlington, Stoke also beat Fulham 5-0 at home but away lost 1-5 at both South Shields and Wolves, 2-7 at Oldham and 3-7 at Derby.

In Division 3 (North) goals were up from 1320 to 1628. At home Hartlepools beat Walsall 9-3, New Brighton 6-1, Accrington 5-1 and both Southport and Wrexham 5-0 but away lost 0-6 at Rochdale and 2-5 at Chesterfield, Coventry and Nelson! Doncaster beat Accrington 6-2, Coventry 8-1 and Southport 6-1 at home but away lost 1-6 at Ashington and 3-5 at Nelson.

In Division 3 (South) goals increased from 1120 to 1555. In home matches Plymouth beat Aberdare 7-2, Bournemouth 7-2, Crystal Palace 6-2, Norwich 6-3 and Southend 6-2 while away they beat Charlton 5-0, drew with Crystal Palace 5-5 and lost 1-6 at Aberdare!

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Liverpool had a terrible 2009/10 campaign. Their worst League finish for years saw them lose their manager and a place in the Champions League. And when you're down, nothing goes your way. On Saturday 17th October 2009 in a Premier League match at the Stadium of Light Liverpool 'keeper Pepe Reina appeared to have a shot from Sunderland's Darren Bent covered. It then hit a beach ball, deflecting the match ball to the right of Reina into the net with the beach ball just missing the post on his left. It was the only goal of the match - and it was a Liverpool beach ball thrown onto the pitch by a Liverpool fan! Still every cloud has a silver lining. The £10 beach ball set (with beach bag and towel) then proved to be a top-seller in the Liverpool club shop with seemingly every opposing fan wanted to buy one to rub salt into Liverpool's wounds! As one rival fan joked 'This is one of the most flexible products I have ever purchased. Great for not only the beach, but can also play up front.'

Manchester City suffered the same sort of problem when being knocked out of the FA Cup by Sheffield United at Bramall Lane on Sunday January 27th 2008. This time the culprits were blue and white balloons released into the Manchester City penalty area by City fans. An early cross into the City penalty area saw the ball hit a couple of balloons before nutmegging Michael Ball and leaving a straightforward goal for Luton Shelton. If being knocked out of the cup by a balloon was bad enough when the City players got back to the dressing room they found that thieves had made off with £2000 of their cash!

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The record for most Football League goals in a career belongs to Arthur Rowley.  In a career that spanned 1946 to 1965 he scored 434 League goals in 619 matches for West Bromwich Albion, Fulham, Leicester City and Shrewsbury Town. His 44 Division 2 goals for Leicester in 1956/57 and 38 Division 4 goals for Shrewsbury in 1958/59 still stand as club record highs in a single season.

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The title of 'cheekiest goal' probably goes to Ernie Hunt who scored for Coventry against Everton in the First Division on 3rd October 1970. Willie Carr took a free kick by gripping the ball between his ankles flicking it into the air with a backward donkey-style flip and as the ball came down Hunt volleyed home. It was the 1970/71 Match of the Day 'Goal of the Season' and became part of the MOTD opening credits but sadly the move was soon banned. In later years Willie Carr looked back on his most famous 'assist' -

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When Ahn Jung-Hwan scored a golden goal for South Korea which took his country to the quarter-finals of the 2002 World Cup and eliminated Italy from the competition he became an overnight hero. But not in Italy. Sadly for Ahn he was at the time employed by Perugia in Italy's Serie A - but not for long. He was sacked by Perugia president Luciano Gaucci who said "I have no intention of paying a salary to someone who has ruined Italian soccer."

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