WHOOAAH! What the... one wrong key and whoosh - yesterday was zapped into cyber-space in the blink of an eye. Still, another day another dollar.
ALL HAIL George Camsell! The too often overlooked Boro goal machine needs rehabilitating.
Camsell is Boro's greatest ever goalscorer with an incredible 345. But he is England's top goalscorer too having set an incredible net-busting pace of two goals per game in his all too brief international career. His ratio will almost certainly never be bettered - unless a one cap wonder hits a hat-trick then disappears into obscurity. Back to Melchester or somewhere.
The prospect of Liverpool's million-pound-per foot-hitman Peter Crouch closing in on an unlikely modern goal-a-game record on Saturday has prompted me to dig out something that was thrown back into public consciousness after the last tedious international break.
Camsell's name was bandied about, almost begrudgingly. But he deserves more. When the pundits reel off the list of England goalscoring greats - Charlton, Greaves, Lofthouse, Dean, Lineker - he is almost always overlooked. He deserves recognition for what is a quite breath-takingly prolific international striking record.
Crouch has scored 11 in 14 games for England and five in three under McClaren, which is a respectable strike rate of that puts him up with the best in the modern era and most prolific since Jimmy Greaves - but it is nowhere near the dramatic impact deadly Camsell made back in the twenties and thirties.
Camsell top scored for Boro ten seasons in a row from 1926-27 onwards. That first year he fired in a staggering 59 league goals to spearhead Boro's second divsion title victory but was cruelly denied immortality when Dixie Dean topped it for Everton the following year. Only twice in that decade did his league tally dip below 20 goals.
For England he was staggeringly prolific too. He struck a magnificent 18 goals in nine games in two spells separated by an inexplicable five year gap. H egot an eye-catching 11 in his first four games in a blistering debut year.
Back then there were no 12 game European Championship or World Cup qualifying campaigns or pointless friendlies in other time zones. Generally the action was limited to Home International and the occasional post-season challenge match with rivals within easy travelling distance. His record was:
May 1929 (a) France W 4-2 (2 goals)
May 1929 (a) Belgium W 5-2 (4 goals)
Oct 1929 (a) N Ireland W 3-0 (2 goals)
Nov 1929 (h) Wales W 6-0 (3 goals)
Dec 1934 (h) France W 4-1 (2 goals)
Dec 1935 (h) Germany 3-0 (2 goals)
Apr 1936 (h) Scotland D 1-1 (I goal)
May 1936 (a) Austria L 1-2 (1 goal)
May 1936 (a) Belgium L 2-3 (1 goal)
Not bad eh? Of course back then there were easy games. But none of his contemporaries came anywhere near his strike rate. Dixie Dean played alongside and scored a fantastic 18 in 16 games but that fell short of the pace set by Camsell.
Camsell tops the goals-per-game ratio by what looks an unsurpassable margin. Look:
Camsell (1929-36) 18 in 9 -2.00 per game
Viv Woodward (1903-11) 29 in 23 - 1.26
Steve Bloomer (1895-07) 28 in 23 - 1.26
Tinsley Lindsey (1886-91) 15 in 13 - 1.15
Dixie Dean (1927-25) 18 in 16 - 1.12
Tommy Lawton (1939-49) 22 in 23 - 0/95
Stan Mortenson (1947-54) 23 in 25 - 0.92
Lofthouse (1951-59) 30 in 33 - 0.91
Jimmy Greaves (1959-67) 44 in 57 - 0.86
.
.
Peter Crouch (1995-) 11 in 14 - 0.83.
Earlier this season Boro were canvassing suggestions for a club hero that may fill a third plinth down by the stadium. Hmmmm. Any ideas?
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