England League Club Appearance Records

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Here's a list of all 92 League Club's Record for their most played League player - up to date for the beginning of the 2007-2008 season.

Code:
Players in red = players in the 1970-71 FKS World of Soccer Stars album
Players in blue = other players at this club in the 1970-71 season

Note: Only 2 players have played 600 League games or more for one club and not retained / achieved their club's record :

Alan Knight 683 Portsmouth 1979-00

Peter Bonetti 600 Chelsea 1959-79

Variations in the above list between Sky Sports Football Yearbook 2006-07, Barry Hugman (2005) and club histories. The most accurate is presumed to be the club history, followed by Barry Hugman.

*1 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 613, The Definitive Chesterfield by Stuart Basson (Soccer Data, 1997) has 617.
*2 Sky Sports Football Yearbook list sas 595, The Definitive Scunthorpe United by Michael Norton (The Association of Soccer Statisticians, 1996) has 597.
*3 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 585, Football League Records 1888-1939 by Mike Joyce (Soccer Data, 2002) has 586.
*4 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 583, Barry Hugman (2005) lists as 579. Sam did play 3 more matches in the aborted 1939-40 season, which are excluded from this record total.
*5 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lisist as 565, Manchester City, the Complete Record by Gary James (Breedon Books, 2006) has 564
*6 Sky Sports Football Yearbook list sas 563, Football League Records 1888-1939 by Mike Joyce (Soccer Data, 2002) lists as 564
*7 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 519, Queen's Park Rangers by Gordon Macey (The Association of Soccer Statisticians, 1996) has 514
*8 Sky Sports Football Yearbook give Eric Skeels' record as 506, Barry Hugman (2005) as 507.
*9 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 506, Bury F.C. 1885-1999 The Official History by Peter Cullen (Yore Publications1999) has 505
*10 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 467, The Saddlers. The Complete Record of Walsall Football Club by Tony Matthews et al (Breedon Books 1999) has 473
*11 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists as 442, The Definitive Darlington FC (Soccer Data, 2000) by Frank Tweddle lists as 439 League games, plus 2 games that were expunged from the record as they were against Accrington Stanley in the season they folded.
*12 When the club was called Wimbledon. AFC Wimbledon claim this record belongs to their history and not the Milton Keynes based club. Whilst their argument is compelling, in the objective terms of pure statistics history, it is not generally regarded as the case.
*13 Sky Sports Football Yearbook lists Lee Johnson with 115 games in the records section, maybe as these were all starts, whereas Kevin Gall's total includes 43 substitute appearances!

The Wonderful World of Soccer Stars Gala Collection 1970-71 ...

Players from the World Soccer Stars 1970-71 album still hold 17 of the records for the clubs that they represent in the book.

The 14 from the First Division pages are (in order of appearance in the above list): Terry Paine, Billy Bonds, Ron Harris, Steve Perryman, Ian Callaghan, Jack Charlton, Bobby Charlton, Mick Mills, Tony Brown, Jimmy Armfield, Alan Oakes, Eric Skeels, Derek Parkin and Kevin Hector.

The 3 from the Second Division pages are : Jim Montgomery, Barry Kitchener and Alan Ross.

Players from the book that once held the record but no longer do are: George Armstrong (500, Arsenal, 1960-77), Peter Bonetti (592, Chelsea 1962-78 - overtaken mid-season when still playing for the club), Pat Jennings (472, Tottenham Hotspur, 1964-77), and Bobby Moore (544, West Ham United, 1958-74). However, all but George Armstrong's record were beaten by other players from the Soccer Stars book !

Incidentally, Billy McNeill holds the Celtic League appearances record with 486 games between 1957-85

Other records known from former league clubs include ...

* 1 Rothmans Yearbook listed the total as 461, whereas Barry Hugman (2005) has 460.

*2 Sky Sports Football Yearbook listed as 443, The Definitive Torquay United F.C. (The Association of Soccer Statisticians, 1997) by Leigh Edwards has 442.

Note: The above list has been generally compiled from:

Sky Sports Football Yearbook (current edition Headline, London, 2006, formerly called Rothman's Football Yearbook.)

Confirming or correcting information comes from histories compiled by Soccerdata (www.innotts.co.uk-soccer), Breedon Books (www.breedonbooks.co.uk), and Yore Publications (www.yore.demon.co.uk ).

Along with The PFA Premier and Football League Players' Records 1946-2005
Edited and compiled by Barry J. Hugman. Lennard Queen Anne Press, Harpenden, 2005.

Also The PFA Footballers' Who's Who 2006-2007 Edited by Barry Hugman. Mainstream Publishing, Edinburgh 2006

I do give priority to information from club histories, as this has been most closely researched.

Thanks to Mike Jay for the correction to Stuart Taylor's total and to Neil Kaufman for pointing out a number of differences in totals between sources.