Christian Eriksen has only been with Brentford a few months, but he already has a Club Record in his sights. The 30-year-old is part of the Denmark squad for the upcoming international matches. And during that period, he could close in on, and maybe break, the record for most international goals.
Christian has played two matches for Denmark since he joined Brentford at the end of January. He scored in both of them – against The Netherlands and Serbia. That put him in a very small group of Brentford players to have scored more than one international goal while on the Club’s books.
Since The Bees entered the EFL more than a century ago, more than 1,000 players have appeared in our colours, but goals in international football have been hard to come by for Brentford players, with only 15 men finding the net for their countries. Brentford players have been involved in international football for longer than The Bees have been a Football League side and 53 have won caps. Brentford’s first international was Joe Connor, who played twice for the Ireland national football team, which represented the island of Ireland from 1882 until 1950, in 1903.
The Bees were in the Southern League at the time, but Joe played in the British Home Championships 1902/03, winning two of his three caps while with Brentford. He also became the first man to score an international goal while a Brentford player when he found the net against Scotland. Tommy Shanks also represented Ireland in 1905 and it was then almost 30 years until Dai Hopkins became Brentford’s third international, representing Wales.
Dai scored twice in 12 appearances for Wales between 1934 and 1939. He was the second Brentford player to score for his country and was until very recently the only man to do so twice. Dai scored against Ireland in 1935 and England in 1938. He also found the net once in Wartime internationals that are not given official status.
Brentford played in the upper echelons of the First Division in the late 1930s and nine players won international honours, including the Club’s only two England internationals to date – Billy Scott and Leslie Smith. Only Les Boulter, for Wales against Ireland, of those nine scored. Jimmy D’Arcy was on Brentford’s books from 1952 to 1954 and earned Northern Ireland caps soon after the British nation started playing international football. He scored once in four caps earned while with Brentford.
Hermann Hreiðarsson earned 12 of his 89 Iceland caps while with The Bees and scored against Andorra while on Brentford’s books. Stuart Dallas and Alan Judge scored for their countries while with Brentford as did Henrik Dalsgaard. Henrik earned 22 of his 26 Denmark caps while with The Bees, which makes him the Club’s most capped player. He was the first Brentford player to appear in a FIFA World Cup, helping Denmark reach the last 16 in Russia in 2018. His only goal for Denmark came against Switzerland in March 2019.
Tariqe Fosu scored for Ghana last year and Mathias Jensen did so for Denmark in March. Marcus Forss found the net for Finland against France last year and got his second in November. Christian Nørgaard found the net for Denmark last October and Halil DerviÅŸoÄŸlu did so in May 2021, prior to appearing for his country in the delayed UEFA European Championships 2020.
Halil and Marcus joined Dai Hopkins as players to get two goals for their countries while with The Bees late last year. Marcus took his tally to two but Halil went even better. He has four goals for Turkey and holds the Club Record for most international goals.
Our international goal scorer group grew in March when Yoane Wissa scored for the Democratic Republic of Congo against Morocco and Christian grabbed his two goals. That took our total of international goal scorers to 15 and those with more than one goal is now four players. With more international games coming up, some more records may be broken.
Brentford’s full list of international goal scorers is as follows:
Halil DerviÅŸoÄŸlu – Turkey – Four goals
Christian Eriksen – Denmark – Two goals
Marcus Forss – Finland – Two goals
Dai Hopkins – Wales – Two goals
Les Boulter – Wales – One goal
Joe Connor – Ireland – One goal
Stuart Dallas – Northern Ireland – One goal
Jimmy D’Arcy – Northern Ireland – One goal
Henrik Dalsgaard – Denmark – One goal
Tariqe Fosu – Ghana – One goal
Hermann Hreiðarsson – Iceland – One goal
Mathias Jensen – Denmark – One goal
Alan Judge – Republic of Ireland – One goal
Christian Nørgaard – Denmark – One goal
Yoane Wissa – Democratic Republic of Congo – One goal