In the first of his ECHO premium content interviews, Everton reporter Chris Beesley addresses the issue of the decline of natural goalscorers in football
Ken McKenna during his time as Morecambe assistant manager in 2015View 7 Images
Never mind 'across the water' - it feels like there’s something in the water when it comes to producing goalscorers in Birkenhead, the town that looks over the Mersey to Liverpool city centre.
The 383 goals that William Ralph ‘Dixie’ Dean netted for Everton is the most anyone has ever struck for a single professional English club and his 60 goals in the 1927/28 season is a record that will surely never be broken. His closest challenger in that respect is Tom ‘Pongo’ Waring, a fellow son of Birkenhead who, having replaced Dean as centre-forward in the Tranmere Rovers side, bagged 49 First Division goals for Aston Villa in 1930/31.
Then there’s Robert ‘Bunny’ Bell, another Birkonian, who would move from Prenton Park to Goodison Park, but while at Tranmere smashed a Football League record nine goals in a single game as Rovers trounced Oldham Athletic 13-4 on Boxing Day 1935. He could have had 10 that afternoon but missed a penalty.
Other than an ability to combine stellar marksmanship with accruing curious nicknames, what does this tell us? Well, for more than a century, Birkenhead has been a hotbed for producing football’s most valuable commodity, the goalscorer.
But are such natural finishers now a dying breed? Harry Kane was the only striker picked in Thomas Tuchel’s final England squad of the calendar year and at 32, the Three Lions captain is now in the veteran stage of his career. At the time, BBC Sport, produced an article headlined: ‘The great number nine decline – where have England’s strikers gone?’
The in-depth piece showed that the number of English strikers that scored 10 plus goals in each Premier League season had declined from 21 in 1992/93 to just three in 2024/25. So far this term, fellow golden oldie Danny Welbeck, 35, of Brighton & Hove Albion, leads the way when it comes to goals in the competition from English strikers with a current tally of seven.
While Ken McKenna never played the game in the top flight, he was always a prolific marksman at the levels he operated at. The only Englishman to win the then League of Wales’ Golden Boot in its first 20 seasons, he plundered 38 goals in 35 matches for Conwy United in the 1995/96 campaign and after hanging up his boots, he managed TNS (officially Total Network Solutions and then The New Saints, but often dubbed ‘Ten Nasty Scousers’ by Welsh rivals because of the number of Merseysiders in the squad) between 2001-08, guiding them to a hat-trick of Welsh Premier League titles, the first of which earned them a Champions League tie against holders Liverpool in 2005.
Players from Liverpool and Ken McKenna's TNS side observe a minute's silence in memory of the people who lost their lives in the 7/7 London bombings the previous week ahead of their UEFA Champions League first qualifying round, first leg match at Anfield on July 13, 2005View 7 Images
That was a particularly poignant tie for the lifelong Evertonian, who also got to play at Goodison Park against the Blues in their most successful season of 1984/85 when his non-League Telford United side drew them in the fifth round of the FA Cup. When it comes to that particular game, McKenna, now 65, still recalls it vividly, over four decades on.
He told the ECHO: “From a personal point of view it was unbelievable. It was the biggest day in my life, playing at Goodison Park in front of over 47,000 people.
“There was all the excitement and the build-up to it. All my family and friends are Evertonians and the amount of calls I was getting from them saying: ‘You’re going to get beat 10-0, it’s going to be 15’.
“Whenever I could and I wasn’t playing, I’d go and watch Everton and I remember going there earlier in the season and they’d won 5-0. When we drew them, I was dead excited at first and then I thought: ‘Jesus, we could get absolutely battered here, it could be anything’.
“As the game turned out, there were a few bits of sour grapes here and there and we got called physical. Telford were a good footballing team, and they beat loads of league clubs.
“While we weren’t an overly physical team, we did have some physical players individually. Our centre mid, you’d put him in against anyone, little Anton Joseph, and our left-back Tony Turner was massive, he was a hod carrier and had big legs on him.
“I think Everton thought: ‘We’re playing against a non-League team,’ and that made them come into the game with a non-League mentality. I haven’t watched the game back in full, just a few highlights, but Andy Gray smashes the keeper in the first minute and Pat Van Den Hauwe tries to top someone.
Ken McKenna, left, looks on as Everton's Gary Stevens plays the ball back to goalkeeper Neville Southall during Telford's FA Cup tie at Goodison Park in 1985View 7 Images
“It gets a little bit physical and all of a sudden, our captain, little Anton, goes: ‘These are having it here’, and the next thing you know, there are all kinds of tackles going in. It ended up being a bit of a battle in the first half and it was 0-0.
“Everton got a deflection to go 1-0 up and then the referee, who had missed a penalty in the first half when Everton should have had one, gave the most ridiculous penalty to make it 2-0 and that killed us before Tricky Trevor put on in the top bin at the end to seal it. From a personal point of view, just to play at Goodison Park in front of all my family and my friends was a great occasion, but I never had many chances.
“Everyone likes to compare eras, and you might ask what they would be like coming up against Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City. What would that Everton side with Sharp, Gray, Steven and Sheedy be like against the best teams in the Premier League today? I think they’d batter them!
“Just because of their mentality. Get the ball into the box, long throws, free-kicks, direct play, get round the centre-forward, bash the centre-halves around a little bit, cause a little bit of mayhem, whereas now, by the time you’ve waited for the ball to go into the box, you’ve fallen asleep watching it.”
The McKenna family ahead of Ken's big day at Goodison Park in 1985 as he is joined by wife Moira and daughters Michelle and KateView 7 Images
While McKenna, who served as assistant manager to Jim Bentley at Morecambe and AFC Fylde, is still involved in the game in a scouting capacity, he is unabashedly old school when it comes to his football mentality and while he has fond memories of watching Everton in his formative years of the 1960s, 70s and even 80s, by which time he was playing himself, he concedes that many current top-flight sides bore him with their approach.
He said: “I have to admit I’m not a big fan of the Premier League, but I remember watching a game a couple of years ago between Arsenal and Manchester City. I thought: ‘I like the look of that’, but I turned the telly off after about 20 minutes because it was boring.
“I think Man City had about 25 passes in their half and then forced a pass to their lone striker that got cut out and then Arsenal did the same. In the 1970s, the keeper whacked it down the pitch to big Bob Latchford and he’d nod it down or get it wide, they’d get the ball into the box or get runners in and there was a little bit of niggle.
“I played against Everton’s most successful side for Telford and they were physical. Gary Stevens had a long throw, you had Andy Gray and Graeme Sharp up front, both handy lads who could battle.
“We were all at the Bayern Munich game and their coach infamously called them thugs, saying: ‘Mr Kendall, this is not football’. Long ball, long throws, balls over the top, it creates chances.
“You could say that when Everton had their best team, they had two strikers, long throws and long balls, even though they mixed it up a little bit. Even Liverpool in the 1970s when they had John Toshack and Kevin Keegan, they were a great combination and both scored lots of goals, but the way most teams set up now is to the detriment of attacking football.”
McKenna believes that the more patient approach that prevails across football nowadays is actually stifling a positive approach. He said: “The style of play has changed. Now they’re rolling the ball out in the six-yard box to the centre-half.
“You might get two teams in the world who can do it - properly. They’re trying to build from there to create a chance to score a goal.
“I’m not being funny, it’s difficult. The objective is to create chances and to score goals.
“People say that football has improved and certain aspects have, but I don’t think defending is as good as it used to be. I don’t think enough of the defenders are as switched on as they used to be.
“So, why aren’t they scoring more goals? I think it’s down to not getting enough people in the box or the ball in the box enough.
“I’ve seen statistics from games where it’s been number of shots: one or even none. Even in the 1970s when Everton were struggling a little bit, there was Dave Thomas on the wing and big Bob Latchford in the middle up front and Duncan McKenzie backing it up, scoring goals, it was exciting because we were creating chances.”
So, just what sort of a striker was McKenna himself? He said: “I was stuck in between. I wasn’t quite a target man and I wasn’t quite a rapid runner in behind, so I played both roles.
“Sometimes I’d be at a club where I’d play the out-and-out nine but when I was at Tranmere, I played a couple of games with big Jim Steel who is 6ft 3in and they were probably the easiest matches I’ve had in my life as I played off him.
“What you’d do in training is you used to work on combinations. There would be two strikers and you’d get in line with each other, the ball would come, there’d be little stepovers and you’d be working together.
“One would go to the near post and then spin out to create a space. You worked as a two.
“Centre-halves had the problem in that they went with the first striker, got dragged out and then the next centre-forward is getting across the centre-half. Just having that extra body in front of the goal created more goals and problems for defenders.
“Add to that, you’d have two wingers who were getting crosses in and your full-backs were backing them up.
Ken McKenna at Prenton Park during his time with Tranmere RoversView 7 Images
“At the levels I played at, most teams, especially those in the top half of the table, would have at least a couple of regular goalscorers. When I was at Altrincham, my strike partner and I would get around 50 goals a season between us.
“You’d always try and set yourself a target to see if you could get to 20 goals by Christmas and then if you did, in the second half of the season you relaxed.
“Back then, most teams would play with two up front. I think somewhere along the line, the mentality changed from ‘we’re going to score more goals than you’ to ‘we’re going to concede fewer than you.’
“If you look at Italian football in the 1970s and 80s, if you went a goal down, it was going to be difficult to get back. If you went two goals down, forget about it.
“But in England, everyone was 4-4-2 with two wingers and two strikers and anything could happen. Teams could be 2-0 down and win 3-2, and I’ve even seen teams go from 3-0 down to win 4-3.”
Thierno Barry celebrates scoring his first goal for Everton during the match against Nottingham Forest at Hill Dickinson Stadium on December 6, 2025View 7 Images
McKenna believes a big problem for strikers is the change from most sides having partnerships up front to playing with just one up top. Everton’s £27million summer signing from Villarreal Thierno Barry finally broke his duck after 17 matches in the 3-0 victory against Nottingham Forest while fellow frontman Beto also has just one Premier League goal for the season so far in the 3-2 win at Wolverhampton Wanderers on August 30.
He said: “When teams started moving from two to just one striker, that was a massive difference in football for me. It’s difficult when you’re up there on your own in a lone striker system.
“Back when I was playing, if I was having a bad game and I’d invariably be up against two big centre-halves who were giants, I’d say to my strike partner: ‘For the next five-to-10 minutes, I’m just going to get stuck into these two, I’m going to welly them, you work off me, I’m going to back in and try and smash them about a little bit because I’m having a nightmare’.
“You might be a little bit under par on the day but as a strike partnership, you could make it work. If a lone striker isn’t getting much of the ball and all he’s doing is running round, then it’s inevitable that people aren’t going to score goals.”
Playing for Runcorn, Ken McKenna goes up for a challenge with Wycombe Wanderers goalkeeper Paul Hyde in the 1993 FA Trophy final at Wembley StadiumView 7 Images
Former Everton manager Sean Dyche often quotes his football mentor Brian Clough – who netted 251 league goals in 274 matches before a serious injury forced him to retire aged 29 – as insisting that you need to be prepared to get hurt in order to score and McKenna does wonder about the desire of some contemporary footballers. He said: “Look at the state of me! I’ve had stitches in my head, I’ve had my nose broke, ribs broke, everything broke diving in and trying to score a goal, so there’s a little bit of that.
“Graeme Sharp and Andy Gray used to be like that, diving in to try and get a header. If you put them up against today’s defenders, they wouldn’t know what had hit them, look at Gray’s header on the ground at Notts County, when was the last time you saw a centre-forward try anything like that?
“That’s where we’re at in the cycle of football, but I can see a little bit of it creeping back in with the realisation that set-plays matter and you need a little bit of height.
“The players are better now from a technical point of view – because you’ve now got to have 40 passes before you have a shot or something like that. But in terms of getting into those positions and pulling the trigger, there’s an argument that footballers were better in the past.
“There was also a demand. If I was playing centre-forward and the winger never crossed when he had the opportunity, then he’d be told politely, and if he did it twice, I’d be strangling him, I’d be saying: ‘Get the ball in the box.’
“Wingers would know when they’d get the ball and got half a yard then it’s got to go in, or set it back to the full-back. It would have to go into the box else there’d be murder.
“At the same time, if the winger was putting the ball into the box and you’re not in there as a striker, then there would also be an argument. I think we demanded a little bit more off each other and that mentality may have changed.
“Also, you kept going. You might be in a game where the result had seemingly gone but you always still wanted that goal, so it was never dead for a centre-forward as you still want to get your tally up.
“You didn’t care how you scored either. Never mind all this bending it from 25 yards, as long as I got that last touch, it could be off any part of my body, my finger would go up and you’d look in the ECHO and it said ‘McKenna’ then that would do me.”
Are academies to blame though? They’re the institutions producing the players and former Liverpool boy wonder Michael Owen who shared the Premier League Golden Boot as an 18-year-old with fellow Englishmen Chris Sutton of Blackburn Rovers and Dion Dublin of Coventry City, recently told the Rio Ferdinand Presents podcast: “In today’s game, I think I would have been one of the wide players. I don’t think I had the stature to occupy two defenders, so I guess I would have played on the left.”
McKenna said: “I’ve never been in an elite academy. I’ve seen them lower down, but the mentality is different and the players are treated differently.
“I don’t really enjoy watching academy games. Sometimes you get the odd team who are a bit more aggressive, I used to like watching Blackburn, they always had a feisty little team.
“I don’t think the figures for players coming out of academies are great. I had a friend who had worked his way up from the lower leagues to a Premier League club and they were talking about getting a few of the academy players out on loan to teams in League Two or the National League and he said: ‘You’re joking aren’t you? They’d get eaten alive!'
“He told them that there was no way that these young players would survive in that kind of football with the level of intensity and physicality. You’ve also got to remember that it really matters for these lower division pros, it’s their livelihoods, their mortgages are on the line if they don’t get a new contract.
“This is in spite of all the elite players being in top physical condition. That is something that’s improved with sports science because if you look at all the young players now, they’re all athletic.
“There’s a figure that gets quoted about only 1% of academy players making it in professional football. If that’s right then in any other industry, you’d shut it down.
“If I were in charge then I’d be looking at the figures and saying: ‘Something needs to change here.’
“When I’ve watched Iliman Ndiaye (one of the Premier League players who did not come through an elite academy), he is like a bit of a throwback to some of the flair players that you used to have, where they’re happy to take people on. He gets you out of your seat and that’s what you want to see, someone take a few defenders on, not pass, square, sideways, backwards.
“Everton always had players like that in the past from Dave Thomas and Duncan McKenzie to Kevin Sheedy and Trevor Steven. They would take players on and get you a few goals as well.”
So, can McKenna see any hope for the future when it comes to the potential resurrection of the traditional English centre-forward? He said: “I just think it’s the whole structure and mentality of the game and the way it’s played. Perhaps it’s a fear factor with managers because they don’t get very long if they’re not winning and only one league can win the league or the cup.
“If you’re under pressure in any form of life, you’re defensive, but if you’re relaxed, you can be more expressive.
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“It goes in cycles. Barcelona played with the false number nine but when Erling Haaland burst through, everyone wanted a big centre-forward again.
“Who’s going to be the next one to turn around and say: ‘Right, we’re going to have a front two who work together’.”