News, sport and entertainment from the Bournemouth Echo and Dorset Echo.

De-faux pas!

From the Echo, first published Thursday 25th Jan 2001.

JERMAIN Defoe has been forced to put his celebrations on ice after it was discovered he had only equalled a post-war Football League goalscoring record.

When the hotshot Cherries marksman hit the target at Cambridge on Tuesday it was thought he had beaten John Aldridge and Kevin Russell's previous jointly-held record of netting in nine consecutive league games in one season.

Aldridge's feat is recorded in The Breedon Book of Football League Records, while Russell's achievement came to light on ITV's On the Ball football magazine programme.

Defoe, who is on loan at Dean Court from West Ham until the end of this term, has netted in 10 successive Division Two games for Cherries. But intensive research carried out by the Association of Football Statisticians yesterday revealed Southampton striker Ron Davies and Manchester City marksman Billy McAdams also scored in 10 consecutive league games in 1966-67 and 1957-58, respectively.

That means 18-year-old Defoe has only equalled the post-war record of netting in 10 successive league matches in one season. It also means the seemingly ice cool Defoe will have to go through all the stress and strain of trying to 'break' the record for a third time.

The first time was in the build up to Cherries' postponed home match against Oxford last Saturday, the second against Cambridge, and now the third will be for their visit to Millwall this coming weekend.

Association of Football Statisticians secretary Ray Spiller said: "I'm not surprised people thought Defoe had already broken the post-war record in one season, especially when you think how many clubs there are in the league.

"With 92 teams playing each week, there are hundreds of matches each season and everything has to be recorded.

"The Association has records of every team line-up and every goal scorer since the league began in 1888. But when you think about it, it is easy for goalscoring runs to be missed just because of the massive scale of detail re-searchers have to go through.

"It is only when someone like Defoe goes on a scoring run like this that people tend to take notice and re-check. In fact, it was a Saints fan who rang me up after reading about Defoe and he just said: 'look for Ron Davies in 1966-67'.

"I did and he was right. If he hadn't have rung, we wouldn't have known."

Statisticians have also been thrown off course over the all-time Football League record - which includes the period 1888 to 1939 - by an incorrect entry in the Rothmans Book of Football Records.

It states that the legendary Dixie Dean (Everton, 1930-31) and Bill Prendergast (Chester, 1938-39) jointly hold the all-time record of scoring in 12 consecutive league matches.

But sports writers on the Express and Star in Wolverhampton - prompted by Defoe's outrageous scoring antics - discovered yesterday that Tom Phillipson scored in 13 successive league games for Wolves in 1926-27.

The Sun, meanwhile, claimed Leicester striker Arthur Chandler had netted in 16 consecutive league games in 1925-25.

However, research by the club's statistician Dave Smith yesterday revealed Chandler had not scored in a game midway through that run. So Phillipson's 13 would appear to be the all-time Football League record - as long as no other club statistician comes up with a higher figure.

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