Rio's goal see's United match the Gills
When Rio Ferdinand rammed home the winning goal for Manchester United against Swansea City at Old Trafford on Sunday the defender helped to create a new Premier League milestone.A fair bit was made of the fact that his strike in the 2-1 victory as Sir Alex Ferguson said his farewell made him the 20th different United player to score in the Barclays Premier this season, thereby setting a record for a single campaign in the division. Don’t forget that could still be increased as they face a trip to West Bromwich Albion this coming Sunday.
Of course the Gills had already done the same as they went on to lift the League Two trophy in April, young striker Nathan Nyafli becoming the player to make it twenty when he netted in the final game of the season at Burton Albion.
The list of Gillingham scorers in 2012-13 were Charlie Allen, Adam Barrett, Deon Burton, Bradley Dack, Matt Fish, Tom Flanagan, Antonio German, Danny Jackman, Danny Kedwell, Charlie Lee, Leon Legge, Joe Martin, Cody McDonald, Lewis Montrose, Nathan Nyafli, Jack Payne, Ben Strevens, Romain Vincelot, Myles Weston and Chris Whelpdale.
The Gills actually had 21 different scorers in all competitions as Adam Birchall was on target in the FA Cup tie with Scunthorpe United at home.
Looking back through the Gills history I think that 20 different scorers in league games is a club record.
In the successful 1945-46 campaign in which the Kent League, the Kent League Cup, the Kent Senior Cup, the Kent Senior Shield and the Kent Challenge Cup were all won, there were 20 different names on the list but only 19 of them netted in the league games.
In more recent times Peter Taylor’s promotion winning team of 1999-00 had 20 goalscorers in all competitions but just 18 of them were in Division Two.
For anyone that maybe interested the United names are Anderson, Alexander Buttner, Michael Carrick, Tom Cleverley, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Darren Fletcher, Ryan Giggs, Javier Hernandez, Shinji Kagawa, Nani, Robin van Persie, Nick Powell, Wayne Rooney, Paul Scholes, Rafaele Da Silva, Luis Antonio Valencia, Nemanja Vidic and Danny Welbeck.