English football did not begin in 1992; it was simply rebranded.

And is there a career and set of records that have retrospectively benefited more from this historic airbrush than those of Alan Shearer?

It is not Shearer’s fault, but every time there is some sort of goalscoring landmark, as there was this weekend with Sergio Aguero’s 12th Premier League hat-trick and 177th goal, the reference point is the same: Shearer, whose 260 Premier League goals is a record. You will know this because Match of the Day rarely miss an opportunity to point out that their star pundit was also the competition’s greatest ever goalscorer.

Except that he’s not. Not really. Not unless you think that changing the name of a competition that began some 104 years earlier - and still keeping all the same clubs, venues, players, rules and basic formats (with two fewer teams) - somehow makes that a new competition.

Holder of most of the real records is in fact Jimmy Greaves. He scored 357 goals in 516 league matches between 1957 and 1972 for Chelsea, Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham United, which is actually 74 more goals than Shearer in 43 fewer games.