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Boro goal machine George Camsell died 50 years ago today.

The Ayresome Park hero passed away after 40 years of service to the club as prolific centre-forward, juniors coach, scout and finally assistant.

Camsell is Boro’s top all time goal-scorer and is rightly trumpeted on Teesside but it seems strange his name is not better known nationally - especially as he has the best ever England goal scoring ratio.

We should celebrate that.

There was a lot of talk last year of England goalscoring records as Wayne Rooney finally edged past Sir Bobby Charlton and reached the 50 goal mark in 107 game.

Pah! That’s almost glacial. What about the forgotten man of international football?

What about mighty George Camsell?

The £500 bargain buy rattled in a high-speed 18 goals in nine games. Yes. 18 in nine. Camsell: 2, 4, 2, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1 - that’s not some bizarre inter-war formation, that’s Boro’s all time top goal-getter’s international sprint scoring sequence.

Jeez, he got 11 in eight games in 1929 alone. No sign of any Great Depression there. Except for opposition goal-keepers.

The too often overlooked Boro goal machine needs rehabilitating.

Camsell is Boro’s greatest ever goalscorer with an incredible 345. But he is England’s top goalscorer too having set an incredible net-busting pace of two goals per game in his all too brief international career.

His ratio will almost certainly never be bettered – unless a one cap wonder hits a hat-trick then disappears into obscurity. Back to Melchester or somewhere.

Whenever talk of England records arise Camsell rarely enters the public consciousness. If he is mentioned it is almost begrudgingly. But he deserves more.

When the pundits reel off the list of England goalscoring greats – Charlton, Greaves, Lofthouse, Dean, Lineker and now Rooney (who now has 51) – he is harshly overlooked. He deserves recognition for what is a quite breathtakingly prolific international striking record.

Every so often a player will have a scoring spurt.

Rooney himself has had a run of six in six. A decade ago then Liverpool million-pound-per-foot striker Peter Crouch scored 11 in 14 and people were talking in hushed tones about his purple patch as if he was the Messiah.

Yes, it was a respectable strike rate that puts him up with the best in the modern era and made him the most prolific over a short snap since Jimmy Greaves – but it is nowhere near the dramatic impact deadly Camsell made back in the twenties and thirties.

Camsell top scored for Boro ten seasons in a row from 1926-27 onwards.

That first year he fired in a staggering 59 league goals to spearhead Boro’s second division title victory but was cruelly denied immortality when Dixie Dean topped it for Everton the following year.

Only twice in that decade did his league tally dip below 20 goals.

For England Camsell was staggeringly prolific too.

He struck a magnificent 18 goals in nine games in two spells separated by an inexplicable five year gap. He got an eye-catching 11 in his first four games in a blistering debut year.

Back then there were no 12 game European Championship or World Cup qualifying campaigns or pointless friendlies in other time zones.

Generally the action was limited to Home International and the occasional post-season challenge match with rivals within easy travelling distance.

His record was:

May 1929 (a) France W 4-2 (2 goals)

May 1929 (a) Belgium W 5-2 (4 goals)

Oct 1929 (a) N Ireland W 3-0 (2 goals)

Nov 1929 (h) Wales W 6-0 (3 goals)

Dec 1934 (h) France W 4-1 (2 goals)

Dec 1935 (h) Germany 3-0 (2 goals)

Apr 1936 (h) Scotland D 1-1 (I goal)

May 1936 (a) Austria L 1-2 (1 goal)

May 1936 (a) Belgium L 2-3 (1 goal)

Not bad eh? Of course back then there *were* easy games at international level. But none of his contemporaries came anywhere near his strike rate.

Dixie Dean played alongside and scored a fantastic 18 in 16 games but that fell short of the pace set by Camsell.

Even if you include Boro new boy David Nugent’s 100% scoring record (which I haven’t) Camsell tops the goals-per-game ratio by what looks an unsurpassable margin.

Look:

Camsell (1929-36) 18 in 9 -2.00 per game

Viv Woodward (1903-11) 29 in 23 – 1.26

Steve Bloomer (1895-07) 28 in 23 – 1.26

Tinsley Lindsey (1886-91) 15 in 13 – 1.15

Dixie Dean (1927-25) 18 in 16 – 1.12

Tommy Lawton (1939-49) 22 in 23 – 0/95

Stan Mortenson (1947-54) 23 in 25 – 0.92

Lofthouse (1951-59) 30 in 33 – 0.91

Jimmy Greaves (1959-67) 44 in 57 – 0.86

Peter Crouch (1995-) 11 in 14 – 0.83.

Wayne Rooney’s 50 in 107 works out at 0.47 and Bobby Charlton’s 49 in 106 at 0.46. Not bad. Well done. High five. Respect etc.

But let’s not forget Boro’s awesome hitman George Camsell when it comes to talk of England goal scoring records and whether or not they will ever be beaten.