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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Sport
Guardian sport

Which football teams have gone longest without conceding a goal in the league?

Clockwise from top left; Petr Cech, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, Abel Resino, Steve Death and James Trafford.
Clockwise from top left; Petr Cech, Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic, Abel Resino, Steve Death and James Trafford. Composite: Getty, Alamy

“Burnley’s 4-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday on Friday was the 12th consecutive Championship game in which they kept a clean sheet,” writes Graham Davidson. “Is this a record for a domestic men’s league?”

It’s now 1,090 minutes (plus added time, which is never included in such lists) since Burnley last conceded a league goal (Watford’s Kwadwo Baah scoring on 21 December). Since that match, which Burnley won 2-1, their record is eye-catching to say the least: P12 W6 D6 L0 F15 A0 Pts 24. We had a related question in 2009 when Manchester United and Edwin van der Sar were racking up clean sheets. That was for individual goalkeepers and, while James Trafford has been in goal throughout Burnley’s Fort Knox period, there are plenty of examples of teams putting together even longer runs in which they used more than one goalkeeper.

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