Before you all start, yes, we, the media, are as much to blame as anyone.
We are the ones who often promote the Premier League as some sort of unique, ground-breaking competition, we are the ones who sometimes imply football has only existed for roughly three decades.
We are the ones who occasionally consign over a century of the greatest game to memory’s dustbin.
Hence, Michail Antonio, a thoroughly likeable guy and a very effective striker, is billed as a record-holder, hailed as some sort of ground-breaker, for scoring 49 goals in 160 league appearances for his club.
It is a fine effort by Antonio, who has been a winger and a full-back before turning centre-forward.
But let’s face it, he is a record-breaker for one reason only. The top flight of English football changed its name in 1992. And that is it.
Same game, same eleven versus eleven, same rules (mainly), same mistakes, same good players, same flaws, same positives, just a different name.
Like when a Marathon became a Snickers.
Forty-nine goals. In the Twenties and Thirties, Vic Watson scored 203 times in 295 appearances for West Ham United in the First Division.
Okay, he never smashed a Lamborghini into a garden shed on Christmas Day while dressed as a snowman, as Antonio did, but Watson was a bit of a star, all the same.
To my knowledge, Watson never cavorted with a cardboard cut-out of himself after a late goal against ten tired men, but was still, quite obviously, a mustard player.
And there have been plenty of prolific West Ham scorers post-Watson, including Sir Geoff Hurst, who scored 180 goals in 411 league appearances.
Forty-nine goals. This is Antonio’s seventh season with West Ham. In the mid-Sixties, Hurst scored 52 league goals in two seasons. And, during that time, registered a hat-trick in a World Cup Final.
Trying to find Antonio’s place on the list of West Ham scorers is a touch tortuous because there are so many ahead of him.
Johnny Byrne got 79 goals in 156 league appearances, Pop Robson 94 in 227 league appearances.
None of this is to denigrate Antonio’s achievement. Not at all. His journey from Tooting and Mitcham, via loan stops at various outposts, is a thoroughly heartening one.
Considering the injuries he has had and the competition for places he has faced, Antonio deserves nothing but credit.
In the early flutterings of a new season, he has been a breath of fresh air, is a wonderful player to watch and his celebration with the cut-out was a laugh.
Not to David Moyes, though.
“It’s not something I’m keen on,” said Moyes.
Maybe that is because Moyes is a football man, not a Premier League man.
Maybe that is because Moyes knows his history.
Maybe that is because Moyes knows a humble handshake was probably the way Watson and Hurst did things before Sky cameras demanded showboating.
And Moyes has probably explained that to Antonio over the past few days.
The name of English football’s top division had been changed ten years before got his first job in it, yet Moyes, while moving with the coaching and recruitment times every step of the way, is old school.
In a good way.
Forty-nine goals is all well and good.
But humility and hard work - which, by the way, got Antonio to where he is now - is better.
And Moyes is bringing both to West Ham
