Sporting greats learn to greet broken records with generous fanfare | Simon Burnton

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Alan Shearer’s was ‘delighted’ after Harry Kane erased his Premier League goal record but reactions to losing cherished marks were not always so magnanimous

The day after Harry Kane had obliterated his record for the most Premier League goals scored in a calendar year with yet another hat-trick, against Southampton, Alan Shearer wrote of his feelings at having the distinction snatched from his long-retired fist. “I was,” he claimed, “delighted.”

It was an unusual record, in that it took just a particular period of top-flight football into account, and was measured over a time span across which British footballers never ordinarily judge themselves. It was akin to a 10,000m runner being told he had just become the fastest to complete laps 12 to 17 inclusive across all races contested during the month of April, and then being repeatedly interviewed about it. But it was nevertheless a record, a mark of significant sporting achievement, a footnote in which Shearer’s name will never again be written, a boast that he can no longer make, and it was being surrendered with barely a shrug. “Well done,” Shearer tweeted. “You deserve it.”

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from Football | The Guardian https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/2017/dec/29/broken-records-harry-kane-alan-shearer-pete-sampras-roger-federer

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