Well here we are with our 44th Season of Golden Goals and a very big welcome to you all and what a season we are going to have once again. As you can see that we have ended up with a total of 124 entries in this seasons competition, and I would like to thank everyone who has helped us to get to that figure which managed to get in to the top ten best season’s of Golden Goals in fourth place. It is with great regret that we did not reach our record total of 149 from the 2017/18 season. Although we have seen some names missing from last season, we have gained another 6 new players this season.
So who is going to be our 44th Champion and win that £110 prize money? We will find out in the next forty-two weeks time but I wish you all the very best of luck.
So here we go once again with another kick-off for our 44th consecutive season of GOLDEN GOALS
You will see from the above table that we have a total of 18 past Champions playing this season, including 3 two time winners. Our last season Champion is also back, and they are Vincent Cruickshank. Vincent has changed his winning combination from last season to Cambridge United, Manchester City and Southampton. We also have a total of 24 ladies playing in this season competition.
So how did the voting of teams for this season finally end up. It was MANCHESTER CITY that picked up the biggest number of votes, with a total of 38. Last season they had a total of 19 votes and scored a total of 113 goals, so this was no surprise that they would be most voted English team this season.
With our Scottish teams, CELTIC, after picking up 70 votes last season, they picked up just 41 votes this season. Staying with the Scottish teams, the second highest voted team comes from the premiership again and they are RANGERS with just 18 votes, which is up from last seasons total of 10. The Scottish teams had a good turn out this season with a total of 13 teams once more being picked. We have just 5 teams from the Premiership and 6 from the Championship. In League’s One and Two we have 1 team in each league.
With the English teams things have changed as they always do in this competition. We have a total of 14 Premiership teams in this years competition with MANCHESTER CITY being our top team with 38 votes this season. Next comes WEST HAM UNITED with 37 votes. Last season they had just 2 votes. In third place with 31 votes we have ARSENAL. They were our second voted team last season with 26 votes. In fourth place came LIVERPOOL. They have 29 votes compared to 49 last season. Our fifth voted teams are CHELSEA with 20 votes. They had 12 vote last season. In the Championship we have picked up 13 teams, while in League One we have 11, and 8 teams taken from League Two.
We have one team that are back into the football league and Golden Goals this season and they are National League winners YORK CITY with 1 vote. York return to League Two after ten seasons of non-league football. They have appeared in seven seasons with Golden Goals. They became our 14th voted English team when they first appeared in our very first season of 1983/84. finishing on a total of 100 goals, which turned out to be their highest end of season goals total. Last time that we had York was back in the 1999/00 season where they finished on a total of 40 goals. In their previous seven seasons, they have netted a total of 493 goals, and that gives them an average score of 70 goals per season.
So on with the competition and this week’s sheet shows you all the games that have been played up to and including the 9th August. Any games that have been played before and up to Friday the 7th August, have all been counted as midweek goals, so some of you have a bit of a lead already for the 100 Midweek Cash Jackpot of £50.
Week One we had our very first winner of the new season, who won on a total of 11 goals to win the first £6 weekend prize money. Our winner is JED WEARDEN.
Jed started with Golden Goals back in our 2010/11 Season and finished in 73rd place out of 109 players. Jed ended the season with a grand total of 250 goals. Last season he finished in 80th place out of 111 with a total of 235 goals. His winning teams are
CELTIC 5, LUTON TOWN 3, WEST HAM UNITED 3
WEEKEND RESULTS
We have had a good start to the season with plenty of goals but we had one of our team picking up the highest score over the weekend with 5 goals. They were from the Scottish Premiership CELTIC, after they won their second league game 5-1 away to Kilmarnock. Celtic started with Golden Goals back in our very first season of 1983/84, where they became our 2nd voted Scottish team. In that season they ended with a total of 116 goals. They have hit 100 or more goals in 23 of their 44 seasons to date. They hold the record for the most goals scored with 144 in the 2024/25 season. So this is their 44th Season with us and over the years they have netted a total of 4309 goals, which gives them an average score of 97 goals per season. They have 41 votes this season.
So lets see how the rest of our teams that were in action, got on over the weekend.
LEAGUE CUP 1st Round
We have already had some of our teams in cup action, and, if you have been following our blog, you will know that four of our teams have been knocked-out. They are Bristol City, Port Vale, Wrexham and York City. We had a total of 25 teams playing in the cup over the weekend and here are the results.
Teams that are through to the next round are CAMBRIDGE UNITED, who won 2-1 at home against BARNET. CARDIFF CITY won 3-2 at home to Swindon Town. LUTON TOWN won 3-0 away to GILLINGHAM. LEICESTER CITY won 1-0 at home against Northampton Town. SHEFFIELD WEDNESDAY won 1-0 at home to Bolton wanderers. BIRMINGHAM CITY won 1-0 away to Swansea City. WEST HAM UNITED won 3-1 at home to Portsmouth. CHARLTON won 3-1 away to Cheltenham. SOUTHAMPTON won 2-0 away to Colchester Utd. AFC WIMBLEDON drew 1-1 at home against Newport County, and then won 5-4 on penalties. READING drew 1-1 away to BROMLEY and then won 5-4 on penalties. BURNLEY drew 1-1 at home to Notts County and then won -3 on penalties. PRESTON NE drew 1-1 at home to HUDDERSFIELD TOWN and then won 4-3 on penalties. Other teams that went out are BRISTOL ROVERS who lost 1-0 at home to Peterborough Utd. DERBY COUNTY lost 2-1 at home to Lincoln City. CHESTERFIELD lost 1-0 away to Fleetwood Town. GRIMSBY TOWN lost 3-1 at home to Blackpool. OXFORD UNITED lost 2-0 away to Leyton Orient. MK DONS lost 4-1 away to Norwich City. SALFORD CITY drew 1-1 at home to Shrewsbury Town and then lost 4-3 on penalties. STOCKPORT COUNTY drew 1-1 at home to Doncaster Rovers and then lost 5-4 on penalties.
SCOTTISH RESULTS
Now, you might already know that the Scottish have already played their first round of their League Cup, if you have been following our blog and with their group format once again, so most of our teams have already played more than five games this weekend. But here is the results of their second league games.
In the Premiership CELTIC are top of the table after they won their second league game, 5-1 away to Kilmarnock. With their biggest result to date, Celtic are now on a total of 6 goals. After a goal run of 5 league/cup games, ABERDEEN picked up their first blank score sheet, 2-0 away to Dundee. HEARTS have won their first league game 4-0 at home to Dundee Utd. Hearts are now on a total of 5 goals. RANGERS have still yet to win in the opening games, as they lost 2-1 at home to HIBERNIAN. Rangers are on a total of 2 goals, which makes them our worst Scottish team this weekend, while Hibs are on 3 goals.
In the Championship, ARBROATH drew 0-0 at home to Inverness CT and picked up their fourth blank of the season and now two in a row. DUNFERMLINE drew 1-1 at home to AYR UNITED and picked up their 11th goal of the season. Ayr are on a total of 14 goals and have now scored in all of their six league/cup games played. STENHOUSEMUIR have won their first league game, 2-0 at home to Greenock Morton. Stenhousemuir are on a total of 9 goals.
In League One EAST KILBRIDE drew 1-1 away to Airdrieonians and picked up gaol number 19. They have now scored in all of their 6 league/cup games played.
In League Two CLYDE lost 1-0 away to Dumbarton and picked up their second blank score sheet.
Here are our top ten in our first week of the season.
WEEK NAME GOALS GOALS GOALS
1 CHARLIE FARLEY 26 4 30
2 M. WALKER 14 6 20
3 T. GUY (3) 18 1 19
4 G. DOWSETT (2) 10 8 18
5 D. BARRETT 15 3 18
6 CJEXPRESS26 16 2 18
7 MANDYME26 13 0 13
8 J. WEARDEN 1 11 12
9 M. JACOBSEN 4 8 12
