Jones Passes 150 Club Goals

The number before the number: 149. Jamie Jones had been on it long enough for the arithmetic to feel like a warning.

Now it reads 150. The Welshman's club tally, after 591 games and 137 goals for Manchester United since his £7.1m move from 1. FC Köln II U23 on 21 June 2046, has crossed a line that only a long career can reach. The other 13 came in 58 games for Köln II; the senior Köln spell contributed three games and no goals, which is either a footnote or a reminder that the count started at zero.

Jones is 35, which is the sort of age that makes a crowd look at a striker differently. They did not look differently on 27 November 2063. He has spent eighteen seasons at United, and the 2063/64 season has added to a total that now sits at 150 in 652 club games across three clubs.

The ratio is not the story. One goal every 4.3 games is the number of a player who has been picked, and picked again, for reasons that do not always show in a column. The 59 goals in 133 games for Wales sit outside the count, which is the correct place for them.

The 150th goal arrived with the crowd already knowing what it meant. Jones has been at United since 2046; the supporters have had time to learn that a striker's milestones are not handed over so much as ground out. He said afterwards, in the manner of a man who has done this before, that the number mattered less than the result.

A better number: 150, and counting. The next one is always the difficult one, which is what people say when they have run out of arithmetic.