What is the best goal difference of a football team not promoted?

“Fulham are top of the Championship with a goal difference of +48. I am acutely conscious of their capacity to screw things up, however, so what is the best goal difference a team has had and not been promoted?” asks Richard Hirst.

It’s looking good for the Cottagers right now, a positive goal difference of +16 from their last four games sending them soaring at the top. But if you are looking for any historical pointers elsewhere to justify your wariness, then here you go.

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Here’s Richard Askham. “Huddersfield Town, 1980-81, Steve Kindon et al,” he writes. “Goals for: 71; against: 40 … +31. They finished fourth behind promoted trio Rotherham, Charlton and Barnsley. It would have been +32 had the ball not gone in off the referee deep into injury-time at Hull. Promotion to the Premier League in 2016-17 with a goal difference of -2 more than made up for 1980-81, though.” Then again, teams have qualified for Europe before with negative goal differences … some have even won titles with them.

“Brentford finished third in the 2019-20 Championship with a goal difference of +42,” recalls John Curry. “They were not promoted. But in the old Third Division North, where only the winner was promoted to the Second Division, Stockport County finished runners-up in 1929-30 with a goal difference of +62.”

The National League also offers a few recent examples, including Wrexham (+52, 2011-12) and Luton (+44, 2009-10 and +48, 2010-11). Worst of all, Hereford United finished second in 2003-04 with 91 points and a +59 goal difference, finishing a point behind champions Chester and losing to Aldershot in the play-offs.

Rough, but not as rough as