Southampton Football Club has enjoyed the trials and tribulations of the beautiful game since its founding in 1885. They have featured in all three of England’s top divisions in recent decades.
Throughout the club’s history, the Saints have had prolific players who scored those all-important goals that have helped the team from the south coast prosper. However, who are the club’s top goalscorers?
Matt Le Tissier (209 goals in 540 appearances in all competitions)
The man nicknamed ‘Le God’ by the Southampton fans is a Saints legend for his service and goalscoring exploits for the south coast club.
Le Tissier represented Southampton for 16 years in the English top flight, scoring a highly respectable 161 league goals and 209 goals in all competitions.
Considered an attacking midfielder, the skilful Le Tissier was still highly effective in front of goal at the game’s top level. His most prolific campaign came in the season 1993/94 when he scored 25 goals.
Le Tissier’s goals helped keep the Saints in the Premier League for a long time. Although he never won silverware with the south coast club, he did claim several individual awards during his career.
He won the PFA Young Player of the Year award in 1989/90. In 1994/1995, he won the award for the most assists while also being named in the PFA Team of the Year.
Unsurprisingly, the Channel Islander won the Southampton Player of the Year three times in seasons 1989/90, 1993/94 and 1994/95.
Despite winning just eight England caps internationally, Le Tissier was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame in 2013.
After his retirement, he became a football pundit, including spending a long spell working on Sky Sports Soccer Saturday.
Mick Channon (185 goals in 510 appearances in all competitions)
The forward made his Saints debut at the tender of just 17 in 1966, scoring against Bristol City. He enjoyed two spells with the club, with his first spell spanning from 1965 until 1977.
@sporticonsuk Mick Channon is almost 75, How He Lives is Sad… #soccer #football #fifa
After a brief stint with Manchester City, the forward returned to the club in 1979 until 1982. Channon’s highest goal tally for the club came in season 1973/73 when he scored 21 goals. Unfortunately, the Saints suffered relegation to the Second Division in the same season.
The only honour the forward won during his two spells with the club came in 1975/76 when his goals helped the Saints to an FA Cup triumph.
Channon became involved in horse racing when he retired from football in 1986. In 1990, he became a fully licensed trainer and went on to great success in the field. He is now arguably remembered as much for his exploits in horse racing as he is for his football career.
Bill Rawlings (193 goals in 364 appearances in all competitions)
Rawlings joined Southampton as a youngster in 1918 and spent over a decade with the Saints, firing home a highly impressive 193 goals in 364 competitive games.
Rawlings’s performance in front of goal was illustrated by his finishing as the Saints’ top goalscorer in eight of the nine seasons from 1920/21 until 1927/28.
During his time with Southampton, he helped the Saints win promotion from the Football League Third Division South in season 1921/22 when he scored 30 goals.
Terry Paine (183 goals scored in 808 appearances in all competitions)
The diminutive winger came through the Saints youth set-up, debuting in the 1956/57 season. He went on to represent the south coast for 18 years, making a club-record 808 appearances for the club, scoring a creditable 183 goals.
He was a steady rather than prolific goalscorer, with his highest goal tally coming in the season 1963/64 when he scored 21 goals in the Second Division.
While with the club, he won the Third Division title in the 1959/60 season, a feat he repeated with Hereford United 16 years later.
Paine was part of England’s 1966 World Cup-winning squad. However, he only appeared in one game in the competition, so he failed to receive a medal, as only the starters for the Three Lions were awarded medals.
In 2009, he finally received a medal after the English FA campaigned to FIFA for all of England’s squad members to receive medals.
George O’Brien (156 goals in 247 appearances in all competitions)
The Scottish inside forward joined Southampton in 1959 from Leeds United. He went on to have one of the best goals-per-game ratios of any Saints player, scoring 156 goals in 247 appearances in all competitions in his six years on the south coast.
After leaving Southampton, his career lasted just two more seasons. He played for Leyton Orient and Aldershot before hanging up his boots.
Derek Reeves (145 goals in 273 appearances in all competitions)
The forward joined the Saints in 1954 after leaving the British army and stayed with the club until 1962. Reeves was Southampton’s top goalscorer in four straight seasons.
In the last season of that stellar run, in 1960, the forward scored a Third Division record of 39 goals, a record that still hasn’t been beaten at the time of this writing.
In 1962, Reeves left Southampton for south coast rivals Bournemouth, having found goals harder to come by in the English second tier. He joined non-league Worchester City in 1965, where he ended his career before moving back to Bournemouth and passing away in 1995 at just 60.
Eric Day (147 goals in 398 appearances in all competitions)
The Dartford-born winger enjoyed a 12-year career with Southampton, joining the Saints in 1945 and leaving in 1957.
Day scored a respectable 147 goals in 398 appearances in his Saints career before moving to Gravesend and Northfleet, where he ended his playing career.
Ron Davies (138 goals in 248 appearances in all competitions)
The Welshman is unlikely to be a familiar name to those not connected with the Saints, but he was prolific in front of the goal for the south coast club.
Davies joined the club in 1966 after spells with Chester, Luton Town, and Norwich City. The forward spent seven years with the Saints, scoring double figures in all but one of his seasons.
He certainly had his shooting boots on in his debut campaign with Southampton in season 1966/67, as he fired home 37 goals in 41 appearances.
Davies later played for Portsmouth for two seasons and had a loan spell with Manchester United before moving to the USA, where he remained for much of his life until passing away in 2013.