830 goals, 90 trophies: the impossible numbers of Paul Malcolm

There was a time when a centre-forward with 30 goals in a season was a marvel. When 300 career goals put you among the immortals. When a trophy cabinet with a dozen pots was the stuff of dynasties. Then along came Paul Malcolm, and all those numbers started to look like pocket change.

He finished with 830 goals in 903 club games. That's not a typo. Add 217 in 199 internationals, and you're looking at more than a thousand goals at the highest level. Ninety trophies. Ninety. You could fill a removals van with the medals alone.

But numbers only tell you so much. They don't tell you about the way he moved, that lazy first touch that killed a ball dead, the sudden explosion of acceleration that left centre-halves grasping at air. They don't tell you about the fear he put into defences before a ball was even kicked. I played against strikers like that, once or twice. You'd stand in the tunnel, sneak a look at him, and you'd already be half-beaten. Malcolm had that effect on people.

He did it at Chelsea first, for the best part of two decades. 667 goals in 728 games for the Blues. Sixteen league titles, fifteen Champions Leagues, a dozen FA Cups. You could argue he carried that club on his back for years, but that would be unfair to the players around him. He just made everyone else better. A pass into feet, a lay-off, a dart to the near post. He didn't need to dominate the ball; he dominated the game.

And then, just when you thought he might wind down, he upped sticks to Real Madrid FC and scored 163 in 175. Because of course he did. Because even at the end, when the legs were going and the hair was thinning, he still knew where the goal was better than anyone alive.

I never shared a pitch with him, more's the pity. But I watched him enough times, from the stands and on the telly, to know I was seeing something that wouldn't come again. The kind of player you tell your grandkids about. The kind of player they won't believe existed.

Seven years on, the game has moved on. New stars, new records, new arguments about who's the greatest. But every now and then, someone will bring up his name, and the room will go quiet for a moment. Because deep down, we all know. There was Paul Malcolm, and then there was everyone else.