GIVE WAYNE SOME CREDIT.

When Wayne Rooney finally beats Bobby Charlton's England goalscoring record, we shall all breathe a sigh of relief. But remarkably, Wayne has equalled Bobby in exactly the same number of games, 106, at a rate of 0.46 goals per game. Charlton scored 22 in friendlies against Rooney's 14 and Charlton did score in the Home Championship, defunct in Rooney's time. Some might regard those as "easy" pickings??

This is an era of modern fit footballers, high defensive strategy and usually difficult opposition, although one could argue that England, back in the day, did not meet San Marino and the like.

Between 1903-1911 England played Ireland, Scotland and Wales only until 1908, when some friendlies with Austria, Bohemia and Hungary were arranged on a European tour. Four matches aggregated 28 goals from these “emerging nations” and Vivian Woodward scored six. An amateur playing for Spurs and Chelsea, he is regarded as England's most efficient scorer at 1.26 goals per game.

Steve Bloomer almost matched that between 1895-1907 (1.22) but this was only against the Home countries.

In the post War era, Stan Mortensen, the only player to score a Wembley Cup Final hat trick (for Blackpool in 1953), struck at a rate of 0.92 between 1947-53, appearing in 25 internationals, but that did include a 10-0 whitewash of Portugal in Lisbon, when Stan scored 4. In this period, he did have Matthews and Finney supplying him with delicious crosses.

Other greats were Nat Lofthouse, an old fashioned centre-forward from Bolton (1950-58) at 0.91, who was playing at a time when England was being found out by continental opposition and tactics and Jimmy Greaves 0.78 in 57 games who missed the finale of the 1966 World Cup and surely would have gained more fame had he been fit.

Gary Lineker 0.6 in 80 games and Geoff Hurst 0.49 in 49 games bring us into the modern era with Alan Shearer 0.48 in 63 games, a more efficient rate than Wayne and Bobby.

Messi at 0.46 and Ronaldo 0.45 put this all into perspective. It is quite an achievement.

Frank Lampard needs a special mention, scoring 29 from midfield and Michael Owen notched 40.

Own goals gets 49!!

That says a lot for our attacking prowess and ability to put defences under pressure!!