Every Player to Score in All Five Tiers of English Football

These players have proven they can cut the mustard at every level, from the National League all the way up to the Premier League.

Ryan Yates has scored in all five of England's top divisions. / Getty/Neal Simpson

There is a vast gulf in quality between the Premier League and the National League, almost wherever you look.

At the top of the pyramid, the Premier League is played at relentless speed, shaped by tactical detail, positional discipline and technical precision.

Further down, each division presents a different kind of challenge—and by the time you reach the fifth tier, the game places far greater emphasis on physicality, endurance across long seasons and squeezing every possible advantage from set pieces and fine margins (a simplification, yes, but you get the idea).

Very few players are capable of thriving across that entire spectrum. Fewer still can say they have found the net at every step of the journey.

Yet some have bridged that gap—scoring goals in the Premier League, Championship, League One, League Two and the National League—proving they can adapt, survive and succeed at every level of England’s professional football pyramid.

Here’s a look at the players who have scored at least once in all five divisions—with a few who have gone even further.

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1. Jimmy Willis

Jimmy Willis was the first player to score across all five tiers of English football, finding the net in every division from the Premier League down to what was then known as the Conference. In doing so, he beat former Liverpool full-back Steve Finnan—more on him later—to the milestone by a full decade.

A defender by trade, Willis scored his earliest goals for Darlington in non-league and Division Three, now League Two, in the early 1990s. He later netted in the third tier with Bradford before moving to Leicester City, where he added goals in the second tier, now the Championship.

His Premier League strikes also came in Leicester colours, with two goals during the 1994–95 season completing a truly unique achievement.

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2. Steve Finnan

Steve Finnan is an English football cult hero. / IMAGO/ANP

Steve Finnan was mistakenly credited by Sky Sports as the first player to score in all five divisions of English football when he netted his only Premier League goal for Liverpool in September 2004.

While Jimmy Wallis had actually beaten him to the record, Finnan’s achievement remains no less impressive. His journey began in non-league football with Welling United before he moved into what is now the Championship, scoring for Birmingham City.

The Republic of Ireland international also found the net in the third and fourth tiers with Notts County.

Although he failed to score in the Premier League during spells with Fulham and Portsmouth, he eventually completed the set with that solitary goal for Liverpool.

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3. Gary Hooper

Gary Hooper = EFL legend. / Getty/Robbie Jay Barratt

Former Celtic striker Gary Hooper went one step further than Wallis and Finnan, becoming the first player to score in each of England’s top six divisions—from the Conference South all the way up to the Premier League—within the space of just nine years.

Hooper began by finding the net in non-league football with Grays Athletic, scoring in both the Conference South and the Conference. He then climbed the pyramid, netting in League Two with Hereford United, League One with Southend United and the Championship with Scunthorpe United.

A prolific spell north of the border with Celtic followed, before Hooper completed the English set after joining Norwich City for the 2013–14 season, scoring six Premier League goals.

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4. Ryan Yates

Nottingham Forest captain Ryan Yates has also scored in all five of England’s top divisions, despite spending his entire professional career contracted to the Tricky Trees.

For Forest, he has found the net in both the Championship and the Premier League, while earlier loan spells saw him score for Barrow in the National League, Notts County in League Two and Scunthorpe United in League One.

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5. Sammie Szmodics

Sammie Szmodics found the net in the Premier League for Ipswich in 2024-25. / IMAGO/PA Images

Sammie Szmodics has moved around the leagues quite a bit, but has always found the back of the net, no matter the level.

He began his professional career with Colchester United in 2013, scoring in both League One and League Two, and also found the net in the National League during a brief loan spell with Braintree Town in the 2015–16 season.

A short stint at Bristol City in the Championship proved unfruitful, but he later scored at that level with Peterborough United and Blackburn Rovers.

Szmodics then made it a full house with Ipswich Town, netting four Premier League goals in the 2024–25 season, although it wasn’t enough to keep the Tractor Boys in the top flight.

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6. Jack Taylor

Jack Taylor has had a similar path to Szmodics. / Getty/David Watts

Jack Taylor’s journey to scoring in all five of England’s top divisions has been remarkably similar to that of his countryman Szmodics, with the two crossing paths on multiple occasions along the way.

He began his career with Barnet, scoring in both League Two and the National League, before joining Peterborough United in the 2019–20 season alongside Szmodics, where he added goals in League One and the Championship.

Though the pair parted ways briefly while Szmodics was at Blackburn, they eventually reunited at Ipswich Town, where Taylor completed the set by scoring in the Premier League during the 2024–25 season, netting a dramatic 94th-minute winner against Wolverhampton Wanderers—his only strike of the campaign.

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