Last season’s League One golden boot race was one of the stories of the campaign. Charlie Kelman came out on top for Leyton Orient, with a cluster of forwards just behind him as Birmingham City, Wrexham and Wycombe all pushed for promotion.
A few months on, the picture looks very different. Promotions, transfers and a step up to the Championship mean the division’s five leading scorers from 2024-25 have taken very different paths. Here is how they are getting on now.
Charlie Kelman
Charlie Kelman took last season’s League One golden boot with 21 goals for Leyton Orient. His goals were central to Orient’s play off push and made a summer move feel almost inevitable.
That move arrived in July when Charlton Athletic, fresh from winning promotion via the Wembley play off final, brought Kelman in on a permanent deal from Queens Park Rangers.
The step up has been a challenge so far. In the Championship this season, Kelman has made more than a dozen league appearances for Charlton but has found the net only once, with the Addicks’ goals shared around midfielders and defenders rather than a single dominant striker.
It is a classic example of a prolific League One forward needing time to adjust to a higher level and a new role, rather than an indication that last season’s form was a one off.
Jay Stansfield
Jay Stansfield finished last season as Birmingham City’s leading scorer in League One with 19 league goals, putting him second in the division behind Kelman. His finishing was a big reason Birmingham bounced straight back to the Championship.
This year he has carried that momentum into the second tier. Now Birmingham’s focal point in the Championship, Stansfield has already scored a healthy number of goals in domestic competition and remains one of their main threats in a side pushing towards the play off places.
Of last season’s top scorers, he looks the most seamless example of a striker taking League One form and turning it into a genuine Championship impact.
Davis Keillor-Dunn
Davis Keillor-Dunn was part of the tightly packed group behind Kelman and Stansfield, scoring 18 league goals for Barnsley in 2024-25 as the Tykes once again chased promotion.
Unlike some of the others on this list, he stayed put. Barnsley are back in League One this season and Keillor-Dunn is again at the top of their goal scoring rankings, with several league goals already keeping him among the division’s more productive attacking midfielders.
The numbers are not quite at last season’s pace yet, but he remains central to Barnsley’s promotion hopes and continues to offer a mixture of late runs from midfield and set piece threat that few in the division can match.
Sam Smith
Sam Smith joined Wrexham from Reading in January and finished the 2024-25 League One campaign with 18 goals, level with Keillor-Dunn and Richard Kone in the scoring charts. His brace in the win over Charlton was one of the defining moments of Wrexham’s remarkable third straight promotion, taking them into the Championship.
The jump has been steep. In the Championship this season, Smith has often been part of a rotation rather than an automatic starter and has only scored once in his opening batch of league appearances, with other forwards carrying more of the scoring load.
It underlines how even an excellent League One scoring record does not always translate immediately when the level of defending goes up and the role within the team changes.
Richard Kone
Richard Kone’s 18 league goals for Wycombe Wanderers last season helped him to the League One Player of the Season award and put him firmly on the radar of clubs higher up the pyramid.
This summer he made that step, joining Queens Park Rangers and moving into the Championship alongside several other names on this list.
Early returns have been encouraging. Kone has scored a handful of goals in his first Championship appearances for QPR, showing that his pace and movement in behind can trouble defenders at this level as well. He is not dominating the scoring charts in the same way as last season, but he looks on track to establish himself as a long term top two tier striker.
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