Many NFL fans enjoy the website Score mewhich tracks and details unique scorelines as they occur in the sport. There were two new entries (including a 70-20 win for the Miami Dolphins) this past week, the 1,077th and 1,078th unique results in the competition’s 104-year history.
English football tends to be less encyclopaedic about its (admittedly lower) scores, but Sheffield United’s thrashing by Newcastle United last Sunday was just the second 0-8 away win in the history of the English game’s top flight (the only other time it has happened was in December 1893, when Wolverhampton Wanderers had an equally bad day against neighbours West Bromwich Albion).
All of this means there are now just nine unique scorelines (taking into account the home and away team) in the 135-year history of the English footballing elite.
What is the highest-scoring draw never to be repeated? Which two clubs each feature in three of these nine games? How many of the matches have taken place since the Premier League era began in 1992-93?
The Athletic answers all those questions and more.
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On the opening day of the third season of the English top flight, Derby and Blackburn played out a 13-goal thriller and produced what is still the only 8-5 result in its history (it was also the first of just six top-flight games in which 13 or more goals were scored).
John Goodall, whose goals fired Preston North End to the inaugural title in 1888-89 before he departed for Derby, scored a hat-trick for the home team and his brother, Archie, got one, too. Meanwhile, Jack Southworth managed a hat-trick of his own for defeated Blackburn (who appear three times on this list).
This was also the first top-flight fixture to see a team score five and lose, something that has happened 13 times since, with the most recent occasion being Chelsea beating Newcastle 6-5 in September 1958.
Despite scoring eight goals in their first match of the season, Derby, who were still managed by a committee at this point, couldn’t break into the top three that night due to their goal average (a precursor to goal difference) being inferior to those of Everton, Bolton Wanderers and Wolves.
There were 12 sides in the league in that campaign, with Derby eventually finishing second-bottom and Blackburn sixth. In those days, the teams in the last four places faced ‘re-election’ (a system where they had to reapply for their spot in the top flight, with clubs not in the top tier similarly applying to replace them) rather than automatic relegation. There was no demotion in this particular season, though: everybody stayed up.
Derby scored 17 per cent of their season’s goals in this match (eight of 47) and, despite their lowly final position, were only outscored at home over the campaign by title winners Everton (39-38).
Aston Villa 12-2 Accrington, March 1892
George Ramsay’s Aston Villa — who would go on to win the title four times in the 1890s — put 12 past Accrington (not to be confused with 1891-founded neighbours Accrington Stanley) at their old Wellington Road home in 1892.
Four goals each from Lewis Campbell and Jack Devey helped Villa become the first side to score a dozen in a top-flight game, a feat that has only been achieved twice since — remarkably, one of those instances took place just 23 days later as West Brom beat Darwen 12-0. Villa finished this season in fourth place and lost the FA Cup final to West Brom, while Accrington came 11th but were re-elected.
This remains one of just three of the nine unique top-flight scorelines not to involve either Blackburn or Leicester City.
Aston Villa dominated English football for much of the 1890s (PA Images via Getty Images)
Sheffield United 11-2 Cardiff CityJanuary 1926
On New Year’s Day in 1926, Sheffield United thrashed Cardiff City 11-2, a scoreline which, along with never being repeated in the top flight, remains the last time a team has scored 11 times in a game in the top tier of English football. Five players scored for United that day, with Harry Johnson and Dave Mercer both getting hat-tricks.
United finished that season fifth (there were 22 clubs in the First Division by that point) but did score the most goals (102). Eleven per cent of those came in this match. Cardiff, meanwhile, came 16th.
Sheffield United 5-7 Blackburn Rovers, March 1930
In the first of three unique scorelines to take place in under two years at the start of the 1930s (a change in the offside law in 1925 had ushered in a higher-scoring era), Sheffield United scored five but conceded seven at home to Blackburn.
Jimmy Dunne scored three for the hosts, but Clarrie Bourton’s four — which included a first-minute strike — and goals from Les Bruton and Jack Bruton (who weren’t related) and former first-class cricketer and future Galatasaray manager Syd Puddefoot were enough to secure a sensational away victory.
Leicester City 6-6 ArsenalApril 1930
The highest-scoring draw in the history of the top flight took place a few weeks later, on Easter Monday.
Fifth-placed Leicester (the other club to appear three times on this list) hosted 12th-placed Arsenal at Filbert Street and, in front of a 27,241 crowd, the two teams produced arguably the most eye-catching scoreline English football has ever seen.
Leicester led 3-1 at half-time, but the brilliance of Dave Halliday (four goals) and 18-year-old Cliff Bastin (two) meant the points were shared. Hugh Adcock and Arthur Lochhead scored two each for the home team.
Cliff Bastin in 1930 (J. Gaiger/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images)
Leicester City 3-8 Aston Villa, January 1932
Another match at Filbert Street and another unique scoreline. Leicester, who were battling to avoid relegation and a return to second-tier football for the first time since 1924-25, were steamrollered by a George Brown-inspired Villa.
Brown, who had won the league title with Huddersfield Town three times in the 1920s, scored five goals to go alongside a first-half double by Billy Walker and a 24th-minute goal from Joe Beresford.
Villa came fifth at the end of the season and Leicester stayed up by five points, finishing 19th (out of 22).
A struggling Tottenham team, who were 16th in the league, appointed Bill Nicholson as their manager in mid-October 1958.
The 39-year-old Nicholson, who had played for Spurs for almost his entire career before retiring in the 1954-55 season, duly oversaw a 10-4 thumping of Everton at White Hart Lane in his first match in charge. Bobby Smith scored four as, despite a Jimmy Harris hat-trick, Everton lost by a six-goal margin.
Tottenham finished 18th (out of 22) that season and avoided the drop by six points, with their 85 goals scored being six more than fourth-placed Bolton.
Nicholson remained their manager until 1974, winning 12 trophies and famously leading the north London club to the double (the title and the FA Cup) in 1960-61. Spurs have not been champions of England since.
Everton’s Harris before one of football’s most futile hat-tricks (Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
West Ham United 2-8 Blackburn Rovers, December 1963
You might have heard about Boxing Day 1963 before. That day saw 66 goals scored in 10 games in the English top flight and this unique scoreline wasn’t even its highest-scoring match.
That honour went to Fulham’s 10-1 demolition of visitors and 1961-62 champions Ipswich Town (which remains the last time a team scored 10 in a game in England’s elite division), although while there have been three other 10-1 home wins, nobody else has lost 2-8 on their own pitch before or since.
West Ham’s team that day featured three men who would play for England in their 1966 World Cup final win — Bobby Moore, Martin Peters and Geoff Hurst — and they were managed by a future England boss in Ron Greenwood. But all of them were powerless to do anything about a barnstorming Blackburn side who were top of the table heading into the game and fielded a starting XI containing three Mikes and one Mick.
Fred Pickering and Andy McEvoy both scored hat-tricks for the visitors to cap what must have been a miserable Christmas for West Ham fans, extending the Londoners’ winless run in the league to eight games.
The fortunes of both clubs reversed at the turn of the year, however.
While Blackburn won just four of their remaining 17 league games to finish seventh, West Ham lifted the FA Cup for the first time after beating Preston North End 3-2 in the final in May. That triumph saw Greenwood’s team qualify for the Cup Winners’ Cup the following season, which they also won at Wembley, defeating West Germany’s 1860 Munich 2-0.
Bryan Douglas scores for Blackburn against West Ham in the top flight’s only 2-8 away win (S&G/PA Images via Getty Images)
Southampton 0-9 Leicester City, October 2019
The only game on this list from the Premier League era is also the biggest away win in the history of the English top flight, with Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester team thrashing Ralph Hasenhuttl’s Southampton on a damp Friday night at St Mary’s.
Hat-tricks by Ayoze Perez and Jamie Vardy — the first time in more than 16 years that two players from the same team had scored three in a Premier League game — took the 2015-16 champions up to second in the table and Southampton into the relegation zone.
Joint-biggest-ever #PL win ✔️
Biggest-ever away #PL win ✔️
Nine goals ✔️
Two hat-tricks ✔️Who enjoyed that one? pic.twitter.com/4ZazaMBwrq
— Leicester City (@LCFC) October 25, 2019
Leicester finished fifth, just missing out on Champions League qualification after losing their last two games, while Southampton recovered from this humbling to end up 11th.
Southampton also conceded nine without reply against Manchester United at Old Trafford in February 2021 but, in the context of obscure scorelines, 9-0 home wins in the English top flight are pretty common, with 11 of them in total.
(Top photo: George Wood/Getty Images)
