On the 12th May 1949, Arthur Rowley who managed 433 goals in his 619 game career scored 5 for Manchester United against lowly Yeovil Town in an 8-0 FA Cup win. Matt Busby was in his fourth year as manager of United. Rowley never played for England but did play Minor County cricket for Shropshire bowling cheeky leg breaks. He played for United as an under 15 in the war time league, the youngest to play for the club. After the war he played for West Bromwich Albion, Fulham, Leicester City and finally Shrewsbury in 1958.
Here he became top scorer in the Fourth Division with 38 goals in 43 games. He then went on to score 32, 28. 23 and 24 goals in the next seasons until he slowed down in 1965.
Top English goal scorers during their Football League and Cup career are:
Jimmy Greaves 357, Tommy Lawton 349, Steve Bloomer 314, Dixie Dean 310, Ian Rush came 15th with 232 goals, Tony Cottee 214 goals 18th, Geoff Hurst 210 21st
and Wayne Rooney 208 22nd, but he is still scoring.
George Camsell won't ring too many bells but he was born in Durham City and his career took him from Tow Law Town and Durham City in his youth to Middlesbrough where became known as the "pitman turned goal poacher" as he scored 29 goals in 12 games between October 16th 1926 and January 1st 1927.
On Christmas Day he scored all 5 goals in a 3-5 away win in the league for Middlesbrough against Manchester City. Having scored 4 against Portsmouth, Fulham and Swansea City, he then notched a hat trick against Port Vale. On January 15th Chelsea held Camsell's team to a 0-0 draw!
He managed 59 goals in the season, only to be beaten by Dixie Dean the next season with 60 goals.
During the war he worked in a local munitions factory and later "discovered" the young Brian Clough as a scout and then was a secretary in the club.
Camsell only played 9 times for England between May 9th 1929 against France a 4-1 win ( scored 2), then May 11th v Belgium a 5-1 (scored 4), Ireland 3-0 a (2) on Oct 9th, Wales (3) 6-0 at Stamford Bridge on November 20th.
Later he featured against France in 1933 (4-1) scored 2, then Germany December 1935 scoring 2 in 3-0 win. In 1936 v Scotland scored 1 in a 1-1 draw and then on tour, scored 1 v Austria (1-2) and against Belgium scored 1 in a 2-3 defeat.
Camsell died in 1966.
We could claim brilliance of individuals or incompetence by defenders to explain these feats but a lot had to do with the new offside law rolled out in 1925!
The change was from three defenders (including the goalkeeper) between the attacker furthest forward and the goal line. It changed to TWO defenders (including the gks) only when the ball is played forward.
In 1924-5 4,700 goals were scored under the old law in Football League matches, compared to 6373 in 1925-6.
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