The complete story of the Premier League’s goalscoring record

“As Harry Kane (213) continues to chase Alan Shearer’s record of 260 Premier League goals, I was wondering who was the last person to lead the chart before Shearer,” begins Eric Hardy-King. “How many different leaders have there been? Obviously Brian Deane was there at the very beginning, and I think Teddy Sheringham finished top scorer in the first season, but who else has been outright leader? And how long has each player been top?”

First things first: this answer required a subterranean data dive, with everything researched manually, so please don’t bet the farm on the table at the bottom being 100.00% correct. What we can say without fear of contradiction is that, in December, Alan Shearer will celebrate 30 years as the Premier League’s outright record goalscorer. He has been out on his own for the past 10,791 days, and in total for almost 11,000.

The last man before Shearer to hold the record was another Spurs forward, Teddy Sheringham, between April and December 1993. Before their first played together for their country, Shearer and Sheringham were dominating English football in a different way. Accomplished net-tickler though Sheringham was, he probably wouldn’t have held the record but for Shearer suffering a serious knee injury halfway through the first Premier League season. At that stage Shearer had 16 goals, five more than anyone else.

As for the progression of the record, let’s start at the dawn of time: 3pm on Saturday 15 August 1992. Brian Deane scored the first Premier League goal after five minutes, giving Sheffield United an early lead against Manchester United. He held the record alone for precisely four minutes, until Coventry’s new signing John Williams (aka the Flying Postman) scored at home to