Well Done Wazza!

Congratulations to the Pie-Faced Wonder. Wayne Rooney crashed home another penalty to see him become England's record scorer. Glenn Hoddle purred that the keeper got nowhere near it. The keeper touched it on its way in actually, Glenn, but then, with your hotline to God, you do see things move in mysterious ways.

It is undeniable that Wazza is now the greatest striker England have ever had. Then again Margaret Thatcher was PM for 11 long years but that doesn't make her the best we've had unless you're a proto fascist fuckwit with all the empathy of a tapeworm - or George Osborne to give that worm its proper name.

Certainly those of us that witnessed the manchild's brawny arrival on the international would be unsurprised to have been told 11 years later that the lad had surpassed Sir Bobby in the legion of goalscoring greats. At that time Rooney looked capable of anything. Three Weetabix, a cow-pie and a liaison with a forty-something hooker... and it's not even nine o'clock.

Since then, like many an English prodigy he has slipped slowly back into the ranks of the Merely Very Good at a time when the Very Best are, when it comes to Messi and Ronaldo, Bloody Ridiculously Good Like You Might Be If You Were Having The Most Wonderful Dream Ever.

But even in the company of England's finest finishers, he's a little bit wanting.

Jimmy Greaves was the finisher supreme, they tell me. Fleet of foot, lithe and slippery, good on either side. And he did all this on pitches that halfway through October turned into the sort of pasture a herd of cattle might turn its nose up at. Those eyes that were once cold and ruthless lost their lustre in the perennial post-playing battle with the booze. He had a massive stroke recently but somehow football and its fans have mustered the £30,000 necessary to pay for his physiotherapy, possibly by asking every Premier League player to contribute 0.00001% of his weekly salary to help the greatest goal-taker the top division has ever seen. Or not.

Bobby Charlton took the record from Greavesie of course. He had much in common with the man who beat him at Wembley. They both played for Man U, both scored 49 goals from 106 games, both had humble beginnings and both were at pains to deny their baldness.

The Charlton comb-over fooled no one. Indeed the smallest breeze left Bobby's pate glisteningly free while the strands flew in his wake like a plume of smoke from a steamboat's funnel. (C.f Alan Gilzean, Ralph Coates - what the hell were they thinking?)

Rooney of course bought himself a topweave which to this day looks a little like it belongs to someone else. Frankly, footballers shouldn't give a shit whether their heads can be slapped or not. It's of no bloody consequence whatsoever and a bit pathetic and vain to think that it is.

Similarities between Wazza and Chazza end there though. Charlton was a barnstorming midfielder whose gentle demeanour was at odds with the dynamite in his boots. Rooney's dynamite is as likely to emerge from his brain as his boot. Cristiano Ronaldo can tell you that.

Michael Owen seemed destined to overhaul Charlton but ended up falling short. Well, writhing in agony on a touchline, really, as, once again, hamstrings overworked in his late adolescence by unthinking staff at Anfield twanged like so much perished elastic. Owen is now the least charismatic football pundit in living memory and I wish him every success with the gee-gees instead. Indeed any one of his gee-gees could make a more inspired contribution to a half-time review on BT Sport.

Before Owen we had the saintly Gary. Now there was a crisp finisher. He barely set foot outside the box, and now he's barely off it. Except for that penalty he would have joined Bobby. Rooney's penalty v Switzerland was struck with all the vehemence Lineker's lacked. For a man so wonderfully clinical in front of goal it is a moment of unrivalled embarrassment for Gaz: it's the football equivalent of Heston Blumenthal burning the toast or Darcey Bussell falling on her arse.

Each of these surpassed goalscorers seem to be better at scoring goals than Wayne. There are numerous reasons to downgrade Rooney's achievement then. His performances in major tournaments have been woeful since 2004. He has neither the predatory skill of Lineker or Greaves or the midfield drive and purposefulness of Charlton. But does that really actually matter folks?

In his defence, Rooney has often, both for club and country, had to 'do a job' for the team - which translates as having to be plopped somewhere because teammates are less adaptable. The current England dressing-room seem to admire him enormously - and like him too - which I'm imagining is less likely if you have to hang your coat on the peg next to the Gelled Winker Cristiano, or a truculent narcissist like Ibrahimovic.

Furthermore, the lad, regardless of whether he's having a stinker (and sometimes he looks like he's wearing cotton-wool boots), puts in a hell of a shift every time. Beckham had his limitations, many more than Wazza, and yet you could never doubt his commitment either.

So, while comparisons are odious - I haven't even mentioned Lofthouse and Shearer, who to my mind is still the best English centre-forward of my lifetime - let us not be so bloody churlish. I've heard people moan that Andy Murray is well boring (he sort of is), or that Stuart Broad is an arrogant sod (he can be), or that Lewis Hamilton is a massive cock (he is, he so is) but that doesn't mean we downgrade their achievements. And any road, Wayne seems to me like a decent fella.

So. Raise a glass to the lad, hell, have a fag too. He would if it were you