Seventh heaven
- Wednesday,
by David Barber
Great Britain 1-0 Brazil
London 2012 Women's Football
Group E
7.45pm, Tuesday 31 July 2012
Wembley Stadium, London
Live on BBC3
Steph Houghton, the GB defender with an eye for goal, has scored in all three Group E matches for Hope Powell’s table-topping side.
Her three strikes so far – one each against New Zealand, Cameroon and Brazil – have put her in seventh place in the all-time list of GB scorers in the Olympic Games.
That’s men and women combined, of course. The men first took part in the London Games of 1908, taking the gold medal after beating Denmark 2-0 at the old White City Stadium.
A Bradford City striker, Harry Walden, leads the way with nine goals. He notched six of those in a 7-0 First Round win against Hungary in 1912 and grabbed another in the Final when GB won the gold again, this time triumphing 4-2 against the Danes in Stockholm. Walden also played briefly for Arsenal after World War One.
Here is a list of GB’s top ten scorers in the Games…
1. Harry Walden (Bradford City) – 9
2. Harry Stapley (Glossop) – 6
3. Vivian Woodward (Tottenham Hotspur) – 5
= Bobby Brown (Barnet) – 5
5. Clyde Purnell (Clapton) – 4
= Jim Lewis (Walthamstow Avenue) – 4
7. Bob Hardisty (Bishop Auckland) – 3
= Jack Laybourne (Corinthian-Casuals) – 3
= Steph Houghton (Arsenal Ladies) – 3
10. Seven players are level on 2
Steph is in some very good company. Vivian Woodward may have been an amateur footballer, working initially as an architect and then as a farmer, but he won 23 England senior caps and scored a highly impressive 29 goals. He is currently level with…Wayne Rooney!
