Dean Lewington and the top Football League appearance makers | OneFootball

MK Dons stalwart Dean Lewington is set to retire at the end of the season as one of the highest appearance makers in the English Football League.

Lewington originally came from the academy at Wimbledon and featured 32 times for the club in all competitions before the club moved to Milton Keynes.

Some then may consider Lewington a kind of quasi-one-club player although that's something that fans of AFC Wimbledon will no doubt hotly disagree with.

The defender has remained at the club ever since, making a total 915 appearances, scoring 24 goals, and deputising as interim manager on three different occasions.

Over his league appearances for Wimbledon and MK Dons, the 40-year-old has made 818 league appearances in total – ranking him fifth in the all-time rankings.

Peter Shilton famously tops that list with the goalkeeper playing 1,005 league games over a legendary 32-year career.

In second place is Tony Ford with 931 league appearances for a career that began in 1975 with Grimsby Town and ended in 2002 at Rochdale.

Current Bradford City boss Graham Alexander is third with 833 league appearances – that's an average of an impressive 38 league games per season over a 22-year career.

But Alexander's average is bettered by fourth place Terry Paine who averaged 39 league games per season. The forward held the record during his English Football League career with 824 league appearances which spanned from 1956 to 1977.

Finally, we have the now-retiring Lewington in fifth place currently on 818. If Lewington was to play in MK Don's final five games of the season he would end up just short of Paine – although considering he has featured just four times in League Two this campaign it could have happened had he been chosen more.

Once Lewington does officially retire, Billy Sharp will be the highest active English Football League appearance maker should the 39-year-old continue his career. The current Doncaster Rovers striker is on 681 ahead of Albert Adomah (677) and Jonny Howson (675).