Relive 52 Years of Match of the Day's Goals of the Season!

BBC Goal of the Season

Goals, goals, goals. The currency in which football is traded on and although they all have an equal value of one, some are deemed to be far better than others. For example, a 30-yard rocket is always going to be celebrated more than a tap in from two.

While the best way to calculate the value of a goal in the United Kingdom is courtesy of BBC’s long-running football programme ‘Match of the Day’ and their annual Goal of the Season competition which has been in place since the 1970/71 season.

A competition that rewards the volleys and the stunners, the slalom runs and the passing from one end of the pitch to the other. It is an award that has been handed out on 53 separate occasions, we are now going to look at the data behind it. 

First we will look at each of the players that have been crowned as Goal of the Season winner: 

Ernie Hunt’s donkey kick was the inaugural winner for the 1970/1971 season, the most recent winner was Brighton starlet Julio Enciso. An award that started off being won with domestic grit and is now being won by continental flair.

To get a better idea of this, we will look at the winners by nationality first:

Goal of the Season by Nationality

29 of the 53 awards have gone to English players – 54.72% percent and no other country has supplied more than three winners. Only the Republic of Ireland and the Netherlands have supplied a trio of winners – Dennis Bergkamp has won two for the Dutch on his own. 

While you have to go all the way back to 1995/96 for the first international winner (non UK or Ireland) as then Leeds forward Tony Yeboah’s sensational volley would be worthy of being the best goal that season.

If that is the split when it comes to nationalities, what does it look like when it comes to clubs? 

Which Club has Won MOTD Goal of the season the most?

It is Liverpool who find themselves top of the list here, as no fewer than eight of their players have also scored the goal of the season. However, this may come with something of a caveat and this can be explained by the number of times the Merseyside men were on TV in the 1970’s and 1980’s.

Back then, Match of the Day was not a programme that showed all the goals – instead just two or three matches were shown per Saturday and the sample of award winning goals could only come from what games were shown as highlights.

Liverpool ruled the roost during those decades and more often than not, they would be the pick the top pick for the television cameras. From 1977 to 1989, the club would win the award on four separate occasions. 

Of course, you still have to score good goals in the smaller number of matches being shown, so it should not diminish Liverpool’s efforts completely but their players would certainly have had more opportunities to see their efforts recorded.

Then again, the modern era of Liverpool have been no slouches either and since the 2003/04 season another quartet of awards have been handed out to players who have worn the famous red shirts at Anfield. 

Arsenal are the team that find themselves lying second with six award winners and two of their starts have won the award twice. Dennis Bergkamp was mentioned earlier, Jack Wilshere also helped himself to successive awards in 2013/14 and 2014/15,

However, there was a slight element of controversy when it comes to Wilshere’s wins. This was the era win which the winner was decided by social media voting alone and with Arsenal’s fanbase being mobilised, the midfielder received a huge leg-up when it came to coming out on top. 

While third in the list is Manchester United with five. The Old Trafford outfit have not seen a Goal of the Season winner since Robin Van Persie’s volley against Aston Villa during the 2012/13 season, before that Wayne Rooney had also helped himself to three awards in United colours.

Now we know the clubs that are winning the awards, we can now take a look at when these goals are being scored: 

Which is the most popular month for the MOTD Goal of the year?

As we can see here, May is the month where most goals end up winning awards and although not scientifically proven, I have a theory that recency bias has come in to play here. The most recent month of goals is fresh in everyone’s mind and therefore this becomes the winner.

While it is a trend that you can expand to the back half of any football season. The top five months in terms of the above table are all at the turn of the year and beyond, - you simply do not score better goals after Christmas, football does not work like that. 

10 months of the football season, the first five months all have the lowest frequency when it comes to best goals of any season. With the award being handed out in May, it is no surprise that June and July have not contributed anything to the data. 

One final point to look at is where these goals are scored and whether the stadium is still in use today. 

Of the 53 goals, 45 were netted at stadiums that are still in existence – 84.9% to be precise and this leaves us with just eight goals were the demolition team have since resided. 

These eight stadiums have seen their former residents move into far shinier homes. Names such as the Etihad, the Emirates or the King Power now replace venues such as Maine Road, Highbury or Filbert Street.

Of course, it does not matter about the name of the stadium, just the quality of the goal. While if the BBC cameras are deployed there, there is every chance the next Goal of The Season might just be scored. Who will win at the end of the 2023/24 season? 

Editorial Information

This article was researched and fact-checked by Dan Tracey who also then added the words - Dan is a multi-talented writer, data analyst and podcaster whose six-year career in the sports data sphere has seen incredible successes. From helping UEFA create their annual technical reports to writing articles for Sports Betting Websites, including sites like TheLinesUS and Goal