Former Huddersfield Town and Blackburn Rovers striker Jordan Rhodes – the third highest goalscorer in English league football in the past two decades – has retired at the age of 35.
Only Billy Sharp (259) and Harry Kane (227) have scored more goals than Rhodes’ 220 in the top four tiers of English football since the start of the 2004-05 season.
Rhodes, who also scored three goals in 14 caps for Scotland, has been appointed as the loans manager at former club Rovers upon hanging up his boots.
He started his career with Ipswich Town but came to prominence after joining Huddersfield in July 2009.
During a prolific three-year spell with the Terriers he scored 73 goals in 124 league games before joining Blackburn for £8m in August 2012.
“A legend in West Yorkshire, Rhodes will be forever cherished by Town fans for his contributions over two spells,” said a Huddersfield statement.
Rhodes continued to score regularly during his spell at Ewood Park, where he played alongside Rudy Gestede, who is now the club’s head of football operations.
After 83 goals in 159 Championship games – a tally that helped him become the division’s all-time second highest scorer since the league’s rebrand in 2004 – he moved on to Middlesbrough and then Sheffield Wednesday.
He struggled for goals at both, though did help Norwich City win promotion to the Premier League in a loan spell in 2018-19, and returned to Huddersfield for a second spell in July 2021.
Rhodes was unable to recapture the form of his first spell in West Yorkshire but was a key part of the team that reached the second tier play-off final in 2021-22, where they lost to Nottingham Forest.
An impressive loan spell at League One side Blackpool in 2023-24 saw him score 15 goals in 29 league games.
However, he failed to score in 21 third-tier games after making the deal permanent in the summer of 2024 and he ended last season on loan with Mansfield.
He scored the final goal of his career, and only one for the Stags, in a 1-1 draw with Stevenage in March.
[BBC]