16.4 Have the numbers of goals scored gone down?

The number of goals scored per game in the first few years of the league was a lot higher than now, but it declined quickly. In 1925 the offside law was changed and that led to a short-term dramatic increase. After the Second World War levels rose again to peak around 1960. There was then a steady decline until 1970 and since then goal scoring has remained fairly constant, close to 2.5 goals a game. This is all shown in Figure 16.5.

Figure 16.5: The numbers of goals per game for the four tiers of the English league (the change in the offside law is marked with a red dashed line)