With the EFL Championship celebrating its 20th birthday on 7 August 2024, we look back at the statistically influential players in the competition since its rebrand in 2004.
Today marks 20 years since the first ever matches were played in the rebranded EFL Championship. In the first kick-off on 7 August 2004, Leeds took on Derby County.
Eighteen minutes from the end, Leeds’ Frazer Richardson had the honour of scoring the Championship’s first ever goal. He scored past Lee Camp in the Derby goal, making the first of his 529 appearances in the competition, a record for a goalkeeper. Richardson would go on to make 176 Championship appearances, the last of which was for Rotherham United against Hull City in May 2016. The Millers’ goalkeeper that day? Camp, of course.
Almost 5,000 players have graced the Championship since 2004-05, with some former internationals enjoying their final years before retiring (Teddy Sheringham, Dion Dublin, Kevin Phillips) and others earning a name for themselves in the game on their way to winning the UEFA Champions League (Gareth Bale, Jude Bellingham, Mason Mount).
Then there are the Championship stalwarts, those who seem to have always been there: Albert Adomah, Tom Lees, Lukas Jutkiewicz, Richard Keogh, Luke Chambers and others are all synonymous with the ‘muck and nettles’ of the Championship, to use the phrase of a man who has managed more games and teams than any other manager in the division, Neil Warnock.
In one of two articles looking back of 20 years of the Championship since it was rebranded in 2004, we take a trip down memory lane and give an overview of the key players over that time.
The Players
Part I: The Stalwarts
Albert Adomah’s six-minute substitute appearance for Queens Park Rangers in a 2-0 win over Millwall back in January may not have seemed to have much gravitas attached to it at the time, but it was significant for being his 530th game in the Championship. That set a new record by a single player (he went on to add five more and reach 535), overtaking goalkeeper Lee Camp’s total of 529.
Adomah may have played alongside three players called Lee in the Championship (Johnson, Tomlin, Wallace) but never alongside Camp despite both playing for, at one time or another, QPR and Nottingham Forest. Between them, Adomah and Camp played for 21% of the teams who have ever played in the division, although another stint for the former Ghana international looks unlikely, with him dropping down to League Two with Walsall.
Behind Adomah and Camp in the appearance charts is Tom Lees, whose 493 matches have been spread between three Yorkshire clubs, Leeds United (123), Sheffield Wednesday (254) and Huddersfield Town (116).
Although both Adomah (2) and Camp (3) very briefly made Premier League appearances, Lees has never played above Championship level. In fact, following Huddersfield’s relegation, Lees will be making a league appearance outside of the Championship for the first time since May 2011. Lees holds the record for the most Championship appearances (since 2004) without ever appearing in the top flight, with two 1-0 play-off final defeats under managers called Carlos (Carvalhal and Corberan) against managers called Steve (Bruce and Cooper) in 2016 (Sheffield Wednesday vs Hull) and 2022 (Huddersfield vs Nottingham Forest) the closest he has come.
It is perhaps fitting that the two players with the most play-off final starts are two of the other five players with 400 or more Championship appearances to have never played in the Premier League.
Richard Keogh made 467 Championship appearances, including 10 in the play-offs for Derby County, reaching the final at Wembley twice but ending on the losing side both times. Unfortunately for him, his most memorable incident across the two play-off finals came in 2014 against QPR, when his clearance fell at the feet of Bobby Zamora to score in the 90th minute. This is the only time a Championship play-off final has been decided with a last-minute goal, while Zamora only scored four goals that season, and three of them were in the 90th minute.
Jake Bidwell, similarly, has started 10 play-off matches but never played in the Premier League, with his two finals also ending in disappointment, while at Swansea City in 2021 and Coventry City in 2023. Perhaps appropriately given his name, the player with the most Championship appearances who has played exactly once in the Premier League is John Swift – 304 in the second tier but only one swift appearance in the top flight in May 2014 for Chelsea against Cardiff.
Then there are the players who are constantly on the move. Both defender Elliott Ward and striker Leon Best played for 10 different Championship clubs, a record total for a player, with both journeymen playing in the first season in 2004-05 and making their final appearances in 2016-17. They started 35 games alongside one another for Coventry in that period, the only time the two players crossed over on their trip through the Championship.
Although Ward was a central defender (admittedly one who took penalties) and Best was a striker, Ward actually scored for more clubs (6) than Best did (5), with the latter playing 57 games for Derby, Newcastle, Brighton, Ipswich and QPR combined without finding the net.
Other players have been a magnet for cards. Henri Lansbury has the most yellow cards in Championship history (90), with his ‘high’ coming in 2014-15 when he was booked 13 times. Following him are fellow midfielders Jonathan Hogg (82), George Saville (80), Ben Pearson (79) and Grant Leadbitter (79). The single season record is 16, by Matt Crooks in 2021-22, followed by Paul Robinson (of Birmingham City, not Neighbours) with 15 in 2013-14 and Jack Colback also with 15 in 2018-19.
Derby’s Spanish midfielder Iñigo Idiákez had an impressive Championship record run of being booked in seven consecutive appearances between April and August 2005, a run that wasn’t equalled for almost 17 years until Sam Field had a seven-game yellow card flurry in March and April 2022 for QPR.
Neither Idiákez or Field have received a Championship red card, which isn’t something that can be said of Matt Mills and Darius Henderson, who each received a Championship record total of nine reds each.
Mills was red carded for a record five different clubs (Reading, Leicester, Nottingham Forest, Bolton and Doncaster), while Henderson’s nine came across four different clubs, with his first two reds both coming against Kevin Blackwell’s Leeds; Henderson was later then sent off three times under Blackwell for Sheffield United.
For a single club, the record is eight reds by Alan Dunne at Millwall followed by Gaetano Berardi’s seven at Leeds (one of which was later rescinded against Millwall). Berardi is one of eight players sent off three times in a single Championship campaign, one of whom was Hildeberto Pereira for Nottingham Forest in 2016-17, whose three reds came in a 22-game Championship stint in which he was also sent off in consecutive appearances against Blackburn and QPR.
The youngest player to receive a Championship red card was Chris Cohen for West Ham against Burnley in the opening month of 2004-05, doing so as a substitute and aged just 17 years and 176 days. Since then, only two 17-year-olds have been shown a red card, with Jordan Clarke receiving one in November 2009 for Coventry and Nathaniel Chalobah being sent off for Watford in October 2012.
Four teenagers have been sent off more than once, but none can quite match the record of Simon Walton, who was red carded four times before his 20th birthday for three different clubs (Leeds, Ipswich and Cardiff) in the Championship. After eventually leaving his teenage angst behind him, Walton was only sent off once more in 29 games.
At the other end of the scale, the two players aged over 40 to receive a Championship red card have over 100 England caps between them – a 41-year-old Teddy Sheringham in 2007 and 40-year-old David James in 2011.
Only one player has played more than 100 times in the Championship and not been cautioned or sent off. Former Reading goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann played 125 games without receiving so much as a yellow card for time-wasting. However, this record couldn’t extend to top-flight football, as across 115 Premier League appearances, the American was booked eight times.
Arguably, even more impressive than Hahnemann is the case of former Brentford holding midfielder Kamohelo Mokotjo, who played 94 games and committed 45 fouls without being carded. Since 2013-14, the only player to commit more fouls and not be carded is Freddie Ladapo (53), while rounding off the top three is bulky forward Adebayo Akinfenwa, who committed 43 fouls but none of those inspired a referee to reach for their pocket. Another striker, Lukas Jutkiewicz, has played 474 games in the Championship and has never once been sent off, a record.
Part II: The Goalscorers
Although his total of 78 Championship goals doesn’t quite get him into the top 20 of all-time, Martyn Waghorn does hold the distinction of having scored for the most different clubs. He found the net for all nine sides he appeared for between 2008 and 2023.
Waghorn’s first Championship goal was for Charlton against Derby in December 2008 aged just 18, which was perhaps fitting as he then went on to play more games (112) and score more goals (26) for the Rams than he did for any other Championship side. Sixty-two of his 78 goals were scored across three of his clubs – Derby (26), Leicester (20) and Ipswich (16) – with the other 16 spread across six others, scoring exactly once for Charlton, Hull and Huddersfield, two for Coventry, three for Millwall and eight for Wigan.
His release by Derby this summer means that, as it stands, Waghorn won’t be able to add to his tally and break into the top 20 nor is it likely he’d add a 10th club to his Championship CV in terms of goals.
And so, to the Championship’s 100-club. These are names that that roll off the tongue when thinking of renowned Championship marksmen.
At the top of the ranking is Billy Sharp, scorer of 130 Championship goals in 410 games. Sharp’s unbelievable longevity at this level – the only player to have played in both the 2004-05 and 2023-24 campaigns – is perhaps best highlighted by the fact that Sean Dyche, now aged 53 and with over 500 games in management under his belt, was playing for Watford in Sharp’s first game in November 2004 as a late substitute for hometown club Sheffield United.
Sharp has since gone on to score for seven different teams and play a key role in automatic promotion for both Southampton in 2011-12 (nine goals in 15 games after signing mid-season) and the Blades in 2018-19 and 2022-23, particularly in the former when he scored 23 goals, his most in a campaign at this level. Sharp notched two of his three hat-tricks that season, one of which saw him scored three goals in a 3-3 draw with Hull in February 2019, three days after his 33rd birthday. Sharp’s departure from Hull in the summer to another former club, Doncaster, will see him play in League Two for the first time since he did so in 2004-05 with Rushden & Diamonds.
Six other players have scored over 100 goals in the Championship. Two strikers sit joint-second on 125 goals each, with David Nugent playing in 12 different seasons, scoring in each one, but only once finishing below 10th in the table with a team (16th with Portsmouth in 2010-11).
Nugent’s best season for goals was in 2013-14 for Leicester City, scoring 20 times and also providing 12 assists. It was one of four seasons in which Nugent scored at least 15 goals, with only Ross McCormack doing so more often (five seasons). He was also an excellent source of goals in the play-offs, with four in total, a tally no player can better, scoring in both legs of the 2012-13 semi-final for Leicester and keeping the likes of Harry Kane and Jamie Vardy on the bench, although that year’s second leg is much better remembered for Troy Deeney’s 90th- minute tie-winning goal for Watford.
Ipswich were certainly glad to see the back of him. Nugent netted 14 goals in 17 appearances against the Tractor Boys, four more than any other player has ever scored against a single Championship opponent.
Also on 125 Championship goals is Jordan Rhodes – the only player to net 25+ goals in back-to-back Championship seasons (29 in 2012-13 followed by 25 in 2013-14) and one of only three players to have scored in seven consecutive appearances, along with Charlie Austin and Aleksandar Mitrovic.
Rhodes scored 64 Championship goals under manager Gary Bowyer, a record by a player under a single manager in the competition, while his 83 goals for Blackburn are bettered for a single club only by Deeney at Watford (85) and Peter Whittingham at Cardiff (84).
McCormack takes fourth place for Championship goals with 120 in 337 games. The diminutive forward, who once partnered Olympic goal medallist sprinter Usain Bolt in a friendly for Central Coast Mariners in 2018 after leaving the Championship behind, enjoyed three different 20-goal campaigns. He did so for a different club each time – 21 for Cardiff in 2008-09, 28 for Leeds in 2013-14 and 21 for Fulham in 2015-16, while he is the only player to score 15+ goals in five different Championship seasons.
McCormack’s goalscoring feats are made even more impressive by the fact he had a run of form in which he scored just four goals in 62 appearances between April 2009 and April 2011. Only Dwight Gayle (5) has more Championship hat-tricks than McCormack’s four, with one of those coming in a four-goal haul against Charlton for Leeds in 2013 while wearing the number 44 shirt.
Making up the rest of the Championship’s 100-club are Chris Martin (116), Lewis Grabban (112) and Nahki Wells (101).
Martin is best remembered for his spells at Derby, scoring 69 goals overall and having his best minutes-per-goal ratio there (one every 220 mins). He was also known for his uncanny ability to win fouls. Since 2013-14, Martin is the only player to win 500+ fouls in the Championship (526), including nine in one game in August 2013. Only one player has won more in a game since then; unsurprisingly, the much-fouled Jack Grealish, on two occasions.
Grabban scored 112 goals and featured in the promotion-winning campaigns by Norwich in 2014-15 and Nottingham Forest in 2021-22, while he is one of only three players to play in a Championship play-off final for three different teams (Norwich, Reading, Aston Villa), alongside Gary O’Neil and Kevin Phillips. Perhaps most impressively of all, though, is that none of Grabban’s 112 goals have been as part of a hat-trick – he’s the only member of the 100-club without a hat-trick, scoring the joint-most braces in Championship history (20).
Lastly, Wells has 101 goals in 388 Championship appearances. Seventeen of those goals have come as a substitute, a total only five players can better. Wells could have had more were he more clinical from the penalty spot. Of Wells’ 15 penalty attempts in the Championship, he has missed six, including two in the space of 11 minutes against Fulham for Huddersfield in March 2015 – one of only two instances on record (2013-14 onwards) of a player missing two penalties in one Championship game.
Of course, not all players stick around long enough in the Championship to challenge the all-time top scorer list, but some still have a memorable impact.
Three different players have hit 30 or more goals in a single Championship campaign. The first was Glenn Murray for Crystal Palace in 2012-13, who had only made his debut at that level at the age of 27 the season prior, in which he bagged only six goals. Murray had reached six goals by the end of September the following campaign and scored 29 in his first 33 games before enduring an eight-game barren spell. His 30th league goal of the season finally came in May against Peterborough. He would eventually make his Premier League bow in February 2014 and scored 37 top-flight goals in total, 26 of which were for Brighton for whom he also netted 23 times in their 2016-17 Championship promotion campaign.
There wouldn’t be another 30-goal season until 2020-21 when Brentford’s Ivan Toney – whose only two appearances in the top two tiers of English football up to that stage were short substitute appearances for Newcastle in 2015 – scored 33 goals in a season that would end in promotion for the Bees.
Toney scored 10 times in his first 10 Championship games, the quickest any player had reached double-figures for goals in the competition (the previous fastest was 13 games by Jason Roberts, Diomansy Kamara and Marek Saganowski). He went on to score 11 penalties in the 2020-21 campaign, the most by a player in a single Championship season.
Toney’s 25th Championship goal came in his 32nd game, five appearances quicker than anyone has scored 25 goals in the competition. His final total of 33 in 48 appearances (including scoring in both the semi-final and final of the play-offs) looked set to be a record that would be tough to beat.
That was until Aleksandar Mitrovic fired Fulham to glory in 2021-22, however. Although that campaign was far from his first Championship experience – he had scored 42 goals in 86 games for Newcastle and Fulham across the 2016-17, 2017-18 and 2019-20 campaigns – the Serbian beat Toney’s previous record by 10 goals, scoring an unbelievable 43 times, including three hat-tricks and nine braces.
The Serbian striker only failed to score against three of the other 23 Championship sides that season – Coventry, Derby and Sheffield United were all spared – equalling Toney’s record of 20 different opponents scored against in 2020-21.
Both Mitrovic and Toney are within the top five players for minutes per goal in Championship history (fourth and fifth respectively) but looking at players with at least 1,000 minutes played, the best ratio is a goal every 97 minutes by Odion Ighalo, who notched 20 goals in 35 appearances for Watford in 2014-15. With a plethora of attacking talent at Vicarage Road that season, the Nigerian had to be content with just 22 of his appearances coming within the starting XI, while only nine saw him complete the whole 90 minutes (he scored 10 goals in those completed appearances).
Part III: The Creators
With Opta having detailed data for the Championship since 2013-14, we’re able to look at the most creative players in that 11-year period.
On a very basic level, looking at player assists, the two most creative in that time are Jed Wallace (55) and Jamie Paterson (50). In open play, two have 41 assists – Adomah (him again) and Adam Reach. Looking at assists solely from set plays, again two players share the crown, with both Craig Conway and Joe Ralls having 24 each.
In single seasons, Harry Wilson in 2021-22 for Fulham has the most assists (19), followed by Ipswich’s Leif Davis last season (18) and Matt Ritchie for Bournemouth in 2014-15 (17). In open play, Emiliano Buendía for Norwich created the most in 2020-21, assisting all 16 of his goals for teammates without any coming from set-piece situations.
Ipswich’s full-back star Davis also registered 125 chances created in 2023-24, a league record by an individual since 2013-14, with James Maddison previously having the most in 2017-18 with 124. Across the last 11 seasons, only two players have created 100+ chances in two different seasons – Ross McCormack in 2013-14 for Leeds (108) and 2015-16 for Fulham (100) and John Swift for Reading in both 2021-22 (102) and 2022-23 (108), meaning Swift is the only player to achieve that in back-to-back campaigns.
Looking at it from a minutes-per-assist ratio of players with at least 5,000 minutes played, Buendía has by far and away the best ratio (one every 221 minutes), assisting 28 goals in 77 games in two seasons at this level for Norwich. Buendía ended on the winning side in 71% of his Championship appearances, also comfortably the best ratio of any player with 50 or more games.
Stepping away from assists and looking deeper at players creating chances, the best ratio per 90 minutes by a player since 2013-14 is Amine Bassi, who created 3.4 chances per 90 mins for Barnsley in 2022. Following him is the superb Wes Hoolahan (3.3 per 90), Nathan Redmond (3.3) and Watford’s Giorgi Chakvetadze (3.2), before we get to Buendía again (3.1).
Putting a larger parameter of at least 10,000 minutes played to look at players who spent a considerable time in the Championship since 2013-14, Pablo Hernández tops the charts, creating an average of three chances every time he played for Leeds United, with his teammates converting those into 37 assists for the Spaniard.
Although 15 players have more open-play assists since 2013-14 than Tom Cairney, he has been the most creative player in open play by chances created in that time, a total of 427, which is 45 clear of anyone else. Cairney created 109 chances in open play in the 2016-17 season, the only time a player has topped 100 in open play in a season that Opta has on record.
Bayern Munich were clearly looking closer at Omar Richards’ underlying numbers than his assists when he played for Reading – Richards didn’t assist a goal in the Championship despite creating 51 chances for his teammates, a record since 2013-14 for a player without an assist. In a single season, George Saville remains the most unfortunate player not to register an assist in the 2022-23 campaign, creating 49 chances with none being converted. Indeed, Saville is the only player to create 30 or more chances without an assist in two different seasons since 2013-14, also creating 40 in 2018-19 with nothing to show for it on the assist board.
Part IV: The Unfortunates
Spare a thought for poor Michael Proctor. In a 2003 Premier League game for Sunderland, he had the unfortunate luck to score two own goals that benefitted opponents Charlton, becoming just the second player to do so in a Premier League match. By the start of 2004-05, Proctor had signed for Rotherham United, where he would play 28 times and end on the winning side only once, a 1-0 win over Leeds in November 2004.
Overall, 3,006 players have played 20 or more Championship games since 2004-05 and Proctor has the worst win ratio of any of them (3.6%). At least he never scored a Championship own goal.
Two of Proctor’s 2004-05 teammates didn’t even end on the winning side across 35 games between them and hold the top two highest totals of Championship appearances without a win. Darren Garner played 18 times and Richard Barker played 17 without featuring in a Millers victory, with the latter’s last appearance that campaign coming in the same month Proctor won his one game against Leeds in November 2004. They did at least avoid defeat, which is more than both Pavol Šuhaj and Nicolai Brock-Madsen managed in their spells at Crewe and Birmingham respectively – six Championship appearances and six defeats.
Two players have lost in 11 consecutive Championship appearances, a joint record. Between November 2016 and January 2017, Bristol City lost 11 out of 12 matches in the Championship. Joe Bryan missed the win over Ipswich but did play in the 11 defeats to set a record run of losses for a player. This was later equalled by George Honeyman at Hull City, who lost his final six games in 2019-20 (including an 8-0 hammering at Wigan) and then first five of 2021-22 as newly promoted Hull re-joined the Championship after winning League One.
Looking at own goals, only three players have scored two own goals in a Championship match, the first of which was Shane Duffy in August 2016 for Blackburn against Cardiff. Even more notably, Duffy then got himself sent off in the game and had already scored an own goal in the previous game against Wigan, becoming just the second player to score own goals in consecutive appearances, after Colchester’s Philip Ifil in March 2008. They were Duffy’s last two Championship appearances for Blackburn before he moved to Brighton, although not his final own goal, scoring one against Leeds for Norwich last October, taking his own goal tally to four.
Four is not the highest tally of own goals by a player across the 20 years of the Championship, however. That tally of six is shared by two players: Tom Lees and Mark Hudson.
At the right end of the pitch, Lees scored 18 and Hudson scored 25, so at least they are in positive goalscoring territory. Two outfield players have a minus three goal difference of own goals to goals – Angus MacDonald (five own goals, two goals) and Sam Hird (four own goals, one goal), with MacDonald scoring three of those in the same season (2016-17), level for the most that season with a certain Shane Duffy.
Yaya Sanogo is well remembered for his time at Arsenal and for being a great signing on Football Manager 2012 but he did also score a Championship hat-trick for Charlton in February 2016, which is notable for two reasons. He is both the sole player to score his only Championship goals as part of a hat-trick while also being the first player to score a hat-trick and end up on the losing side (Reading won 4-3). Sanogo had 16 other goalless Championship appearances, nine of which came for Huddersfield Town at the back end of the 2020-21 campaign.
Chris Coyne was an unlucky charm for Luton Town and Colchester United, netting in four matches and ending on the losing side each time (three for the Hatters, one for the U’s), with all four games lost by a one-goal margin. Anthony Wordsworth may share his surname with a famous Poet Laureate, but his goals weren’t poetry for Ipswich or Rotherham, scoring in three matches and losing all three.
The record for games scored in without winning is also held by – you’ve probably guessed it – a former Rotherham player, with Jon Taylor netting in seven games between 2016 and 2019 but winning none, drawing four and losing three, a Championship record.
Part V: The Future Stars
It is worth ending on a high note – the players who appeared in the Championship before then appearing in the pinnacle of European football, the UEFA Champions League final. Overall, 21 different players have achieved this feat and one of those scored, memorably, in two different finals.
Gareth Bale played 41 games in the Championship for Southampton, scoring his first goal in the competition aged 17 years and 21 days against Derby County in August 2006. His final appearance was in the semi-final of the play-offs that campaign, also against Derby, before he left for Tottenham Hotspur. Bale would then score in the 2014 and 2018 Champions League finals for Real Madrid, but it all started in the Championship in April 2006 against Millwall.
Two players played over 100 games in the Championship before going on to play in the Champions League final – Kieran Trippier made 174 appearances for Barnsley and Burnley between 2010 and 2014 before playing in the Premier League and eventually in the final of Champions League in 2019 for Spurs. Ryan Bertrand played for Norwich, Reading and Nottingham Forest in the Championship on loan between 2008 and 2010 before making his Champions League debut in the 2012 final for Chelsea against Bayern Munich, the only player in the history of the competition to make his debut in the final of the UCL.
Others to make their way through the Championship before playing in a Champions League final are Harry Kane (37 games and 9 goals at Millwall and Leicester), Diogo Jota (17 goals in 44 Championship games for Wolves), Riyad Mahrez (3 goals and 4 assists for Leicester in 2014), Jack Grealish (14 goals and 15 assists for Aston Villa) and John Stones (24 games for Barnsley). Ian Maatsen played 79 games for Coventry and Burnley and made his last appearance in the Clarets’ final game of 2022-23 before playing in the Champions League final in June 2024 for Borussia Dortmund, a gap of just 390 days, the smallest gap of any player and an incredible rise in such a short space of time.
Facing Maatsen in that final was a certain Jude Bellingham. Not many were convinced when Birmingham retired Bellingham’s shirt number after he left the club at the end of the 2019-20 season for Dortmund. However, by 2024 he was playing and winning a Champions League final for Real Madrid, coincidentally against Dortmund.
Before all that, Bellingham became the youngest scorer in Championship history (16 years, 63 days against Stoke City in August 2019) and made 41 appearances for a side that finished 20th in the division. The England international has played more games (34) and minutes (2,242) than any other player in Championship history before their 17th birthday, a record that could take some beating.
Bellingham’s final Championship appearance was in July 2020 against Derby. Playing alongside him, also in his last ever Championship game, almost 16 years on from playing his first for Derby in August 2004? Lee Camp, of course.
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