Why is it that so many people don’t seem to realise, or possibly choose to forget, that football existed long before the Premier League was formed.

For the past few weeks we have heard a lot about Leicester City’s Jamie Vardy as he closes in on the ‘record’ for scoring in consecutive matches.

Last week he managed to equal Ruud van Nistelrooy’s landmark of scoring in 10 games in a row and, by the time you read this, he may have broken it if he was able to find the net against Manchester United yesterday evening.

But even if the Leicester player did score yesterday, that does not make him the record holder for English football. No. That crown belongs to Irishman Jimmy Dunne who scored in 12 consecutive Division One matches back in the 1930s.

Yet over the course of Vardy’s magnificent run of form have you heard Dunne’s name mentioned once? Of course not. Because he went on his scoring run before 1992, a date when the media apparently decided football’s record books should be wiped clean and started again.

I find it grossly unfair that football is collectively forgetting that the game had been played for over a hundred years before the Premier League arrived with all its plastic, manufactured glory.

Why marginalise all those people who played in the days before television money began to suck the life and soul out of the sport? How can Dunne’s achievement be any less important than Van Nistelrooy’s or Vardy’s? Is it just because Sky TV wasn’t there to film him scoring a brilliant 18 goals in 12 games?

But my gripe is not limited to Vardy, Dunne and consecutive goals. This trend applies to all football records.

These days, whenever someone mentions the best strikers in the history of English football, the media always drag out Alan Shearer as the record goal scorer.

In fact, by way of a test, I asked a few of my friends who follow the game, who is the highest scorer in the history of English football. And every single one of them instantly came back with Shearer. (Well, apart from one who said Andy Cole, but I’ve always been a bit worried about him).

Well, here’s a newsflash – that title doesn’t belong to Shearer. In Premiership terms he may be the leading scorer, but overall he only scrapes into fifth place.

The person who scored the most goals in the English top flight was Jimmy Greaves, with 357 in 516 games. That compares pretty well with Shearer’s 283 goals in 559 games.

And there are others. Between Shearer and the top spot are Steve Bloomer, Dixie Dean and Gordon Hodgson – three other players today’s supporters will never hear of just because they didn’t have the luxury of Premier League exposure.

Yet Dean, for example, scored his 310 top-flight goals in just 362 games. That’s very close to a goal a game. In one season alone he scored an incredible 60 league goals in just 39 games.

But don’t expect his name to be brought up if Wayne Rooney gets anywhere close to Shearer’s ‘record’. No, it will be all about what’s happened since 1992.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not suggesting we should live in the past and I can understand why younger fans may need records placing in a more modern context.

But that does not justify this current trend of suggesting football only really started when the money-grabbing, self-centred, soulless Premier League came into existence.

It grossly unfair that football is collectively forgetting that the game had been played for over a hundred years before the Premier League arrived

Can you imagine something similar happening in other sports?

What if the Olympics reset the record books and started playing down the achievements of athletes who competed 23 years ago?

It would be absolutely ludicrous. Almost two dozen current world records would suddenly become insignificant.

Yet the football media are doing that very thing, week in, week out.

Of course, none of what I am saying should in any way shape or form be interpreted as an attack on Jamie Vardy. Nothing could be further from my mind.

Not only do I hope he scored yesterday but I also hope he keeps on scoring a goal a game for the rest of the season because the English national team need an in-form striker for next summer. Well, that and a lot of luck, and possibly a small miracle.

But let’s just keep in mind that even if Vardy scores in 11 consecutive games, he is not a record holder in the true sense of the word.

That will only come if and when he scores in his 12th game and thereby draws level with the real record that has stood for 85 years.

And that is an indisputable fact, whether the Premier League and their army of spin doctors like it or not.

Just like all the rest

I’ve heard a lot of adjectives used over the years to describe Manchester United – many complimentary, a lot considerably less so.

But until this season there was one word you would never associate with the Old Trafford club and that is ‘boring’.

Under Sir Alex Ferguson, the managers that went before him and even, to a certain extent, David Moyes, there was one thing you could always guarantee about United and that is that they would play football you would want to watch, even as a neutral.

They might not always win (although they normally did) but even in defeat you could rest assured they would entertain you.

But in just over a season in charge, Louis van Gaal has turned the club’s philosophy on its head and, with it, destroyed a style of play that has been unchanged for half a century.

United are now, quite possibly, one of the least exciting teams to watch in the Premier League. Gone are the attacking, thrilling and dynamic tactics of the past. In their place is a defensive, dull, conservative approach to football that is an absolute eyesore.

Fair enough, Van Gaal’s style may be getting results – they may even be top of the table by the time you read this – but at what price? Sacrificing everything the club has ever stood for?

I understand that football is a results-driven business and that the history books will only show what Van Gaal won with United and not how he won it.

But a slightly romantic side of me always believed United were the one club who could rise above being entirely results-driven. They were big enough to have the luxury of placing as much emphasis on how things were won as the winning itself.

Van Gaal is busy proving that this is no longer the case and United have become just another one of those clubs who are happy to win ugly. And that’s a pity.

sportscolumnist@timesofmalta.com
Twitter: @maltablade