Veteran David McGoldrick topping the charts at 38 | OneFootball

Veteran striker David McGoldrick bagged a hat-trick in Barnsley's 3-1 win away to Leyton Orient at the weekend and continues to show that age is just a number.

McGoldrick bagged goals in the 10th, 53rd, and 62nd minute of the game against Orient to put himself on 15 goals in 31 games in all competitions for the season. The forward has only scored more goals in a single season three times in his career and we still have plenty more games to be played.

The Barnsley man's best goalscoring season so far is still the 25 he netted for Derby County in the 2022/23 season followed by 21 for both Coventry City and Ipswich Town 10 years earlier in the 2012/13 campaign, and his third best season was just last year – 17 goals in 37 games for Notts County.

The hat-trick at the weekend moved McGoldrick to the number one goal scorer in the top four tiers for 2026, putting him ahead of Reading's Jack Marriott (nine) with Kyrell Lisbie and Jayden Wareham just behind on eight.

In comparison, the top Premier League goalscorer for 2026 is Brentford's Igor Thiago with seven since the start of the new year.

What made McGoldrick's treble even more remarkable is that he set a new League One record. Since the branding of the third tier in the 2004/05 season, McGoldrick is now the oldest player to score a hat-trick at 38 years, 2 months, and 28 days.

Dean Windass had the previous record for his hat-trick against Scunthorpe United all the way back in the 2005/06 season (37 years old) and he also has the third-placed hat-trick from the game against Bournemouth (36 years, 29 days old).

With 15 games left in the season, McGoldrick could well go on to have his best year of his career – could even break his own hat-trick record?