Over the 59 years of Sunday football in St Albans there have been many exceptional goalscorers, players who consistently placed towards the top of the scoring charts season after season.
Among those was Russell Twigg, who played mainly for Golden Lion but also turned out for St Albans Hospital, Chequers and Real Mail.
In his first season for Golden Lion (1998-99) he scored an amazing 87 goals, 63 in the league, and hitting the net in just 26 matches. On one occasion he managed nine goals and another seven, while there were two double hat-tricks.
Although he played in the lower division for most of the time, he did spend one season for Premier Division side Chequers, scoring 28 goals.
The magical target of 50 or more in a season has occurred quite a few times, including Mile House’s Martin Gentleman (84), Gary Sippetts of Napsbury Hospital (61), Colin Neave of Wheathampstead (60), Sporting Club’s Dickie Last (58) and Pete Mileham who managed 57 for Rats Castle, the same as Darren Collins hit for London Road.
Ken Wilmott (Wheathampstead), Michael Hemmingway (Parkwood), Alan Moneypenny, (MSFC), Barry Brightman (Godfrey Davis), Darren Coxall (Wheathampstead), Barry Pippelwell (Cotlandswick ), Dave Whitehead (Colney Heath QH), Rob Bidulph (Brookmans Park), Pete Waite (Napsbury Hospital), Chris Wickens and Paul Cunningham (Sandridge Sports), Gordon Guile (Warriors), Matt Geary (Swan), Eamon Rogers and David Damms (Harperbury) and David Yeo (Datalogic) were the others.
Dickie Last’s 58 made him the first player to score 50 or more in a season during 1965-66.
He had managed 48 for Ballito FF in the league’s first year and went on to score over 200 goals in a 15-year career, winning nearly every honour in Sunday football as well as representing the league for the county side.
He was also a member of the first St Albans Sunday representative side to win the Inter League trophy.
Peter Waite was another marksman to torment opposing defences scoring over 200 goals including 85 for Napsbury and 53 for the Herts Advertiser.
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