Erling Haaland rightly received praise for his superb five-goal haul in Manchester City’s 6-2 mauling of Luton in the FA Cup on Tuesday, but he has a long way to catch up with the most goals scored by a player in an English game, which was an amazing TEN by Joe Payne – FOR Luton back in 1936.
Luton beat Bristol Rovers 12-0 that day, in the English third tier, and Payne, helped himself to ten of them, beating the record of nine in a game set by Tranmere’s Robert Bell a year earlier. The 1930s were a glorious time for goal scorers, with Arsenal legend Ted Drake hitting seven in a 7-1 win over Aston Villa in 1935, which is still the record to beat in the English top flight.
In the Premier League, five players have hit five in a game – Andy Cole, Alan Shearer, Jermain Defoe, Dimitar Berbatov and Sergio Aguero. In the FA Cup, Haaland still has some way to go if he is to match the magnificent NINE goals that Ted MacDougall scored for Bournemouth when they thrashed non-league Margate in 1971. MacDougall’s reward was a big-money move to Manchester United, but he never got close to repeating that feat.
In Europe’s top competition, some of the game’s greats have scored five in the European Cup and then the Champions League, including Gerd Muller, Lionel Messi and Haaland himself, who hit five when City beat RB Leipzig 7-0 in the Champions League last March.
Other notable five-goal hauls include Oleg Salenko’s World Cup record when he scored five in Russia’s 6-1 win over Cameroon at USA ’94.
Football League
Joe Payne: 10 goals [Luton Town 12-0 Bristol Rovers – 13th April 1936] Football League record
Ted Drake: 7 goals [Arsenal 7-1 Aston Villa – 14th December 1935] English top-flight record
Premier League
Andy Cole – 5 goals [Manchester United 9-0 Ipswich Town – 4th March 1995]
Alan Shearer – 5 goals [Newcastle United 8-0 Sheffield Wednesday – 19th September 1999]
Jermain Defoe – 5 goals [Tottenham Hotspur 9-1 Wigan Athletic – 22th November 2009]
Dimitar Berbatov – 5 goals [Manchester United 7-1 Blackburn Rovers – 27th November 2010]
Sergio Aguero – 5 goals [Manchester City 6-1 Newcastle United – 3rd October 2015]
FA Cup
Ted MacDougall – 9 goals [AFC Bournemouth 11-0 Margate – 20th November 1971]
International
Hacene Lalmas – 14 goals [Ruisseau 18-0 Birtouta – 22 October 1962] Algerian Ligue 1: Record holder for most goals in one match in all top men’s football leagues.
Archie Thompson – 13 goals [Australia 31-0 American Samoa – 11th April 2001] World Cup qualifying
Luis Roberto Alves – 7 goals [Mexico 9-0 Martinique – 11th July 1993] CONCACAF Gold Cup
Julian Alvarez – 6 goals [River Plate 8-1 Alianza Lima – 25th May 2022] Copa Libertadores
Lothar Emmerich – 6 goals [Borussia Dortmund 8-0 Floriana – 10th October 1965] UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup
Oleg Salenko – 5 goals [Russia 6-1 Cameroon – 28th June 1994] FIFA World Cup
Lionel Messi – 5 goals [Barcelona 7-1 Bayer Leverkusen – 7th March 2012] UEFA Champions League
