Hot Ballard Summer

With speculation about the future of this season's League One Golden Boot winner about to be resolved, we look at how his destiny compares with those that came before him.

It’s no surprise that there’s been so much interest in Dom Ballard since the end of the season ended, with him becoming only the second ever Orient player to collect a Golden Boot, just a year after Charlie Kelman became the first. Ballard’s 23 goals (including three hat-tricks nearly 70 years after Tommy Johnston was the last Orient player to achieve that in a single season) also won him the “Red Boot” - awarded to the player with the most goals across all three EFL divisions, a genuine first for any player in the club’s history¹.

Having arrived in the last knockings of last summer’s window, this was a pretty outrageous achievement, and helps to explain why a plethora of Championship clubs (Southampton, Swansea, Middlesbrough, West Ham, and Bristol City) have shown serious interest in him. But that very same late arrival should also placate Orient fans concerned about how long would be required to find a replacement: sound judgement is more important than time, at least in this respect. Over to you, Mr Mitchell.

It is unlikely that full details of the deal will be officially disclosed, but it is understood that the final fee will be in the region of £5m with significant add-ons that mean if he thrives at the higher level, the transfer will continue to be lucrative for Orient for some time to come.

Some of the speculation around the deal has been (as is the way these days) rather fanciful, so to help put it all into context we’ve taken a look at what became of the previous ten League One Golden Boot winners to see how Dom’s move fits in with the historical pattern. Although one thing consistently overlooked in the discussion about Dom’s future are the personal incentives for him, and the power he has in determining his own fate - whether to sell and for how much is only partly down to the Club.

Anyway, in reverse order…

1. 2025 - Charlie Kelman - remember him? 21 goals across 24/25’s league campaign were enough to earn him a move to Championship Charlton for an “undisclosed” fee significantly lower (around £3.5m upfront) than what Ballard is going for. Kelman was 23 at the time and had only been at Orient on loan, so the specifics of the deal animated the Os fanbase rather less. This was the first ever Golden Boot awarded to a player representing the Os, although 21 goals was the lowest required to secure it in League One over the last decade. Typical Leyton Orient.

   

   Richie taking some very personal satisfaction from this achievement

2. 2024 - Alfie May - 23 goals for Charlton in League One drew the interest of Birmingham City, who had just been relegated to the third tier and were looking for a proven goalscorer to get them straight back out of it. Another “undisclosed” fee masking the fact that - a day shy of his 31st birthday - the selling Club did not receive a transformative amount of money (less than a million). However, May reportedly doubled his salary and scored 16 times for Birmingham, helping them to get promoted as Champions, although they decided not to take him with them into the Championship, preferring to make a profit on selling him to Huddersfield the following summer.

   

3. 2023 - shared between Conor Chaplin and Jonson Clarke-Harris who both scored 26 times in the League that season. Chaplin was promoted with Ipswich, and so got to play in the Championship after signing a new contract, while Clarke-Harris fell victim to Peterborough’s eccentric transfer policy. He was transfer listed so the Posh could cash in on him after failing to go up through the play-offs. But after an £800k move to Bristol Rovers fell through it was difficult for him to re-establish his place in the side knowing the Club were determined to cash in on his diminishing transfer value. That January, a £500k move to Charlton fell through, and he left Peterborough on a free at the end of the season.

   

4. 2022 - Will Keane - his 26 goals fuelled Wigan’s title win, and enabled him to become an established Championship player across the four seasons since. A product of Manchester United’s academy, Keane was 29 by the time of this achievement and had dropped to League One to kick-start his career.

   

5. 2021 - Jonson Clarke-Harris - 31 goals over the season helped to fire Peterborough to the Championship, allowing the striker to test his mettle at the higher level, for a while at least. Still, he did later become the only player to feature on this list twice.

   

6. 2020 - Ivan Toney - now an England international and one of the world’s most reliable penalty takers, just six years ago Toney got 24 goals for Peterborough in a season curtailed by COVID, earning himself a transfer to the Championship with Brentford. The fee was - of course - “undisclosed” but Peterborough were happy for it to be known that it was a club record, and it was generally understood to be in excess of £6m with add-ons, although his previous Club Newcastle were themselves entitled to around 30% of that. At 24, Toney was somewhat older than Ballard is today, but the competition for his signature was considerably tougher, with Premiership clubs showing an interest in him too. His subsequent career path has vindicated that interest - and Toney went on to win the Golden Boot again in the Championship with Brentford en route to the top flight and international honours.

   

7. 2019 - James Collins - 25 league goals for Luton helped them get promoted for the second season in a row. Even though he was already 28 by this point, the best years of his career were ahead of him, even though he was linked to Orient a couple of years ago before eventually ending up at Lincoln, where he will play in the second tier again next season at the age of 35.

   

8. 2018 - Jack Marriott - 27 league goals for Peterborough (them again!) were sufficient to earn him a transfer to Championship Derby County. Again - officially undisclosed, but before the deal was completed had been reliably reported as in the region of £2.5m initially, with add-ons that could take it to £5m in total. Marriott was 25 at the time.

   

9. 2017 - Billy Sharp - Sharp got 30 goals across the season while also captaining his boyhood Club back to the Championship after a two-year absence. This was his third spell at The Blades, which saw him take them to the top flight a couple of years later.

   

   Sharp alongside someone who did play for Orient

10. 2016 - Will Grigg - 25 goals fired Wigan to automatic promotion, and Grigg stayed with The Latics for another three seasons thereafter, including a relegation back to League One and another promotion to the Championship.

So what, if anything, can we learn from this list? Well, a few things actually:

• Ballard is the youngest of all these players at the time they won the accolade, by some considerable margin. That, together with the length of his contract, will account for him attracting a greater transfer fee than the others bar Toney. Talk of a Stansfieldesque £15m was always a bit optimistic, although you can’t blame Wellens for putting that out there.

• Most of the winners went on to play in the Championship the following season, either because they were promoted - or because they were sold. The only exceptions were Chaplin, May, and Clarke-Harris - Ipswich and Birmingham are obviously clubs that would expect to dominate this division and indeed the first two did go on to achieve promotion the following season, leaving JCH (second time around) as the outlier.

• Although not every Golden Boot winner was promoted, most were or came pretty close, making Dom a real exception for having won it despite playing in such a poorly performing team.

• Any idea who came runner-up to Toney in 2020? Armand Gnanduillet, that’s who. He got more than his fair share of stick from Orient fans while he was here (much more than cumbersome strike partner Ollie Palmer) but this just goes to show how players can’t do their best when the culture is toxic.

• Peterborough have a really strong record in recent years, producing three Golden Boot winners (well, two - one of whom won it twice)

1. although neither the “Golden Boot” nor the “Red Boot” awards have been going since 1881, even if they had, no Orient player would have won one until Kelman last season.