Our history, told in our 10,000 goals

The club brought up a significant milestone in our thumping win over Sheffield United on March 4 - Ben White's second-half strike was the 10,000^th goal our men’s first team have scored in all competitions in our history.

We went into this season still 87 goals away from the big landmark, but thanks to our highest seasonal scoring rate for more than 70 years, Mikel Arteta’s side raced to the figure by the beginning of March.

Indeed it took just six games to score the final 24 goals needed, as we set new records in English league football along the way.

On February 11 we equalled our club record for biggest away win in the Premier League with a 6-0 victory at West Ham, and followed that up six days later with a 5-0 triumph at Burnley.

Next up at the Emirates we beat Newcastle United 4-1 and then became the first side in Premier League history to score at least twice in eight consecutive halves of football when we stormed into a 5-0 half-time lead at Bramall Lane on March 4.

That took us to 9,999 overall goals, and it was left to Ben White – exactly a year after registering his first goal for the club – to put his name in the history books with the momentous strike. Just before the hour mark, he received a pass from Kai Havertz that he dispatched, left-footed, into the bottom corner from just inside the area.

“I wasn't really sure it had gone in!” White said afterwards. “I shot obviously, didn't look where I was shooting and did a little spin, so I didn't actually see the ball go in, but then obviously I heard the crowd. I don't score many, so it's really nice (to get the 10,000^th)”.

White’s goal was also significant as it put the seal on another record – we had become the first side in English league history – at all levels – to win three successive away games by at least five goals.

It puts us firmly on course to record our highest-scoring Premier League season to date, a record that was set…. last year. Arteta’s men amassed 88 goals in the league last season, surpassing our previous best of 87 from 2004/05.

The all-time goalscoring tally dates right back to our first match in senior, nationwide football – an FA Cup qualifier in 1889 – and every goal we have scored since then in the football league, FA Cup, League Cup, Community Shield and European competition has counted – and the total now reaches five figures.

It took us 5,839 matches to get there, at a rate of 1.71 per game, and the 10,000 goals were scored by 535 different players (not including own goals). Leading the way with 228 of those strikes is Thierry Henry – our record goalscorer’s haul accounts for just 2.28 per cent of the total – he is one of 19 players to score at least 100. Our goalscorers have netted an average of 18.3 goals each – 85 players scored just once, while 367 of our 902 players represented the first team without ever troubling the scorers.

The overwhelming majority of the goals have come in league football, with 824 in the second tier and 7,193 in the top flight (2,173 have come in the Premier League era).

607 of the goals have been scored in various European competition (including 327 in the Champions League) and 888 in the FA Cup (including qualifying games).

The League Cup, which we first entered in 1966, has seen us score 448 times with the remaining 40 goals coming from our 24 Charity/Community Shield matches.

The team has scored 406 goals under Mikel Arteta so far, making him the eighth most prolific manager in our history. Arsène Wenger heads that particular list, with nearly a quarter of all our goals scored under his watch.

This season is on track to become one of our highest-scoring campaigns on record. We could yet break the all-time club record of 135 set in 1930/31, and the post-war record of 121, set in 2016/17, is in our sights if we continue at our current rate of 2.29 per game.

Our 10,000 goals have been scored against 219 different teams over the past 135 years, with six of those sides conceding more than 300 against us. Everton have been our most frequent victims, with 367 goals conceded from our 221 meetings so far.

The 10,000 goals we’ve scored means our all-time overall goal difference stands at +2,939, as we have conceded 7,061 times from our 5,839 games.

Two other English clubs have already reached 10,000 – the only two teams above us in an all-time English football league table. Manchester United reached five figures in September 2020, thanks to Marcus Rashford’s strike in a 3-2 win over Brighton, while Liverpool scored their 10,000^th goal the following month (Diogo Jota with the landmark goal in a Champions League win over FC Midtylland).

Incidentally we have also been on the wrong end of a famous 10,000^th goal. Lionel Messi converted a penalty against us at Emirates Stadium in a Champions League encounter in February 2016 to bring up the mark for FC Barcelona. Messi had also scored their 9,000^th goal just six years earlier.

Here we take an in-depth look at each of our milestone goals from through the decades.

GOAL 1

Hope Robertson

Royal Arsenal 11-0 Lyndhurst

FA Cup First Qualifying Round | October 5, 1889

Royal Arsenal - at just two years old - in 1888/89. Front (left to right): Morris, Barbour, Charteris. Seated: Brown, Connolly, Danskin. Standing: Horsington, Wilson, Beardsley, Bates (captain), McBean, Scott. Rear: Parr.

All competitive senior goals for the club are counted from our very first FA Cup match, four years before we had even joined the Football League.

It came against Lyndhurst, in the first qualifying round, on October 5, 1889. Until then, the club’s fixtures had all been friendly matches, or in secondary competitions such as the London Senior Cup and Kent Senior Cup.

So Royal Arsenal – as we were then known – first played in national competition football three years after foundation in 1886, and ran out 11-0 winners at the Manor Field, Plumstead.

The man to score the all-important first goal, that launched thousands more? Hope Robertson.

His goal opened the floodgates that day, and we racked up double figures in front of around 2,500 supporters inside the ground. Robertson, an inside left, scored twice that day, and scored two more in the third qualifying round win over Crusaders, before Swifts defeated us 5-1 in the fourth qualifying round – the last stage before the competition proper.

The following season, with league clubs lining up to offer our players the chance to turn professional, Glasgow-born Robertson signed for Everton, who would go on to become champions that year. He later played for Walsall.

Our first 11 senior competitive matches were all in the FA Cup, until we were elected to the football league on May 31, 1893. We scored 40 goals in those 11 matches.

Players and staff of Arsenal pictured in 1890

GOAL 1,000

Bertie Freeman

Woolwich Arsenal 2-1 Birmingham City

Division One | April 13, 1907

Woolwich Arsenal 1905/06 team group. Back row (left to right): PR Dunmore, Jimmy Sharp, James Ashcroft, Percy Robert Sands, Archie Cross, Phil Kelso. Middle row: Archie Gray, Bobby Templeton, Andy Ducat, Tom Fitchie, Roddy McEachrane. Front row: Jim Bellamy, John Dick, Jimmy Blair. Andrew Ducat.

It was nearly 28 years until the club had racked up four figures. Our 1,000^th goal was scored at home to Burnley, six years before the club moved to Highbury.

During that time since foundation, the club had changed name to Woolwich Arsenal, played more than 500 matches, used nearly 200 different players, had four full-time managers, moved home to the Manor Ground and won promotion to Division One (in 1904).

So this was our third season as a top-flight side, with Phil Kelso installed as manager shortly before promotion was assured. Having finished 10^th and 12^th in our first two seasons up, we managed seventh in 1906/07, having briefly been top early in the campaign.

This 2-1 win over Birmingham was our penultimate home game of the season, coming a few weeks after we lost the FA Cup semi-final against Sheffield Wednesday.

Bertie Freeman’s goal in the 70^th minute proved to be the winner, earning us both points against fellow midtable side Birmingham.

Freeman, a centre forward who had joined us from Aston Villa in November 1905, scored 24 goals in 49 senior appearances for us, before leaving for Everton at the end of the 1907/08 season. As well as holding the distinction of scoring our 1,000thgoal, he once netted seven goals in a game for our reserve side. He enjoyed a hugely successful career after leaving Woolwich Arsenal at the age of 22.

He scored 38 goals from 37 league games during his first season at Everton, helping them to a second-place finish in Division One, and making him the top scorer in the league that year. A skilful forward with a powerful shot, he was capped by England, and joined Burnley after leaving Everton, lifting the FA Cup in 1914. He was top scorer in Division Two in both 1911/12 and 1912/13. After retiring in 1924 he established a silversmith business, and died at the age of 69 in 1955.

The Woolwich Arsenal team of 1901

GOAL 2,000

Sid Hoar

Arsenal 3-2 Blackburn Rovers

Division One | March 17, 1928

Arsenal in action at our new home, Highbury, in 1913

Twenty-one years (and the interruption of World War One) later, we scored our 2,000^th goal. English football continued as entertainment during the war years, but was not played competitively. We principally participated in the London Combination between 1915 and 1919, scoring more than 250 goals in those matches – but they are not included in our 10,000.

We had been elevated into Division One – by virtue of receiving the most votes of the seven teams who applied for the final spot in the reshaped post-war top flight – when football resumed after the war. By 1928 we were an established Division One team, and had finished runners-up in Herbert Chapman’s first season in charge two years earlier.

Sydney Hoar scored goal number 2,000, half an hour into a 3-2 home victory over Blackburn Rovers at Highbury.

Hoar (Arsenal heritage number 315) spent five seasons at the club, and scored 18 times from 117 appearances – mainly on the wing. He was part of the first-ever Gunners team to play in an FA Cup final, a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City in 1927.

The game in which he netted our 2,000^th goal was our 31^st league fixture of a season in which we were destined to finish tenth, so perhaps the players had more than half an eye on the following weekend’s meeting with the same opposition – this time in the FA Cup semi-final.

However we went on to lose that game 1-0, and it would be another two years until we finally lifted our first major honour – the FA Cup in 1930. Chapman’s team beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 in that final, thanks to our 2,188th and 2,189th all-time goals.

By this time Hoar had left Arsenal for Clapton Orient, though he retired after one season with them, to become a shopkeeper in Luton, having started out as a straw hat maker before becoming a professional footballer.

He died in 1967 at the age of 71.

e years (and the interruption of World War One) later, we scored our 2,000^th goal. English football continued as entertainment during the war years, but was not played competitively. We principally participated in the London Combination between 1915 and 1919, scoring more than 250 goals in those matches – but they are not included in our 10,000.

We had been elevated into Division One – by virtue of receiving the most votes of the seven teams who applied for the final spot in the reshaped post-war top flight – when football resumed after the war. By 1928 we were an established Division One team, and had finished runners-up in Herbert Chapman’s first season in charge two years earlier.

Sydney Hoar scored goal number 2,000, half an hour into a 3-2 home victory over Blackburn Rovers at Highbury.

Hoar (Arsenal heritage number 315) spent five seasons at the club, and scored 18 times from 117 appearances – mainly on the wing. He was part of the first-ever Gunners team to play in an FA Cup final, a 2-0 defeat to Cardiff City in 1927.

The game in which he netted our 2,000^th goal was our 31^st league fixture of a season in which we were destined to finish tenth, so perhaps the players had more than half an eye on the following weekend’s meeting with the same opposition – this time in the FA Cup semi-final.

However we went on to lose that game 1-0, and it would be another two years until we finally lifted our first major honour – the FA Cup in 1930. Chapman’s team beat Huddersfield Town 2-0 in that final, thanks to our 2,188th and 2,189th all-time goals.

By this time Hoar had left Arsenal for Clapton Orient, though he retired after one season with them, to become a shopkeeper in Luton, having started out as a straw hat maker before becoming a professional footballer.

He died in 1967 at the age of 71.

How our stadium looked during the 1927/28 season

GOAL 3,000

Jackie Milne

Arsenal 2-0 Preston North End

Division One | December 11, 1937

The Arsenal team of 1934/35

By the time we scored our 3,000^th goal, we were unquestionably the foremost club in the country. It took less than ten years to bring up our third thousand, as George Allison continued the fine work of his predecessor Chapman, and Arsenal built ‘the team of the 30s’.

During the early part of the decade we surpassed the 100-goal in a season barrier four times out of five, including our most prolific ever campaign – 1930/31 when we netted 135 times from 46 matches at a rate of 2.93 per game. In fact three of our 14 highest-scoring seasons came in this period (the other 11 were all recorded during Arsène Wenger’s tenure).

Our 3,000^th goal came during the league title-winning season of 1937/38 – our fifth league title in the space of eight years. We had been down in 11^th place in November, but we put together a relentless run to head to the top of the league – this win over Preston was our fourth in a row. Jackie Milne (Arsenal player 378) put us ahead with this strike on the hour mark, and Cliff Bastin – by now our record scorer – added a late second.

As for Milne, this milestone goal marked his final ever appearance in an Arsenal shirt. Just three days later the Scotland international joined Middlesbrough. This goal was his 19^th from 54 appearances - following his debut at the start of 1935/36 – but he did play enough times this season to earn a championship winner’s medal. After World War Two he went to play in Mexico before retirement. He died at the age of 48 in August 1959.

We lost our next two games after Milne’s move to Middlesbrough but we recovered to clinch our fifth title in eight years on the final day, thanks to a 5-0 win over Bolton.

The goals and trophies were certainly flowing during this time, and supporters were royally entertained. It’s not surprising, therefore, that in every season between 1930/31 and 1937/38 we had the highest average attendances in English football.