Look out Peter Shilton! Senior citizen Kane is chasing your England record

What a night it was for Harry Kane on Tuesday at Wembley, scoring twice to down the mighty Finland and also being handed a beautiful golden hat crocheted by everyone’s favourite footballing raconteur Frank Lampard. No, but seriously, winning 100 caps for your country is no mean feat, even when it is a small island whose men’s team has only ever won one major trophy.

At 31, Kane is already England’s leading goalscorer with 68, and with games against Greece and the Finns again next month, he’ll likely add to it. He also has Peter Shilton’s record of 125 caps in his sight, leaving a tantalising prospect: someone who makes a living in the European Union overtaking the former England keeper. *Shakes fist at cloud*. If Kane does surpass Shilton, maybe he could then come for his work, too, appearing as a talking head on GB News to discuss flag design and the woke agenda, with the added gravitas of a 126th cap on the mantelpiece.

Kane is already targeting the pensioner market, alongside his “mate” Snoop Dogg (Snoop Doggy Dogg in old money) by pushing slip-on shoes perfect for ageing rappers and those who can no longer bend over to tie laces. This is the sort of demographic Shilton would seem to be pitching his views to; could he lose his cap record and alliance to Kane just because older people want hot tea, an episode of Morse and some very comfy footwear?

Kane has made his feelings known by singing God Save the Queen/King for the past 14 years. A penalty two years ago resulted in Human Rights World Cup heartache, making sure he can share Shilton’s sense of spot-kick pain and tournament injustice. Kane has even gone undercover in Germany to infiltrate the country’s elite, taking them down from the inside by leading them to a trophy-less season while pummelling goals. Oh, he is clever. Harry Kane MBE: a true English hero and one who seemingly cannot be stopped.

“I’ve always scored goals throughout my career, even in my youth days. I wasn’t as prolific when I played full-time, but the goals have flown since I started part-time with Brechin City back in the day. Hopefully I can now catch Ally McCoist. That would be unbelievable. I need about 15 league goals this year to give me a chance, then I’ll have to just keep going until I get it. I might have to come on in my zimmerframe just to take penalties” – sticking with the theme of records, Peterhead striker Rory McAllister is setting his sights on surpassing the Rangers great’s mark of 282 after becoming only the third post-war fitba player to score 250 league goals in Scotland. Gordon Wallace (264) is the other.

Further to news that Chelsea may relocate to Earl’s Court in a mixed use development site (yesterday’s News, Bits and Bobs, full email edition), one wonders if this might include an Ikea. It would be apt given the tendency to come home from one laden down with countless items that looked nice at the time, but have no clear value or purpose, with nowhere to put them” – Kevin Goddard.

Serious crimes deserve long sentences, so I am wondering what we did to deserve the punishment of your football emails. A group of us now have a regular competition to guess how many words the longest sentence will contain. Yesterday’s 57-worder was only Championship stuff compared with a recent 88-word effort. Sometimes it’s the average that gets us. There was a 42-word average back in a classic July email. And that was with a seven-word first sentence. The second was 45 and the third 60. There was a second 60-worder and a 57-worder. Whether consecutive or concurrent, that many long sentences amounted to a cruel and unusual punishment” – Chris Wheal.

Send letters to the.boss@theguardian.com. Today’s letter o’ the day winner is … Kevin Goddard, who wins a 7” vinyl copy of Manchester United Calypso, a soulful classic reissued by Be With Records. If you’re not a winner, visit their online store to pre-order your own. Terms and conditions for our competitions can be viewed here.

Facepalms all round in the Arsenal kit room when it became apparent that, due to surfeit of white on this season’s home strip (RRP, £80) Mikel Arteta’s side have beeen ordered to wear their away colours in Sunday’s north London derby. “Both teams will be wearing their away strips in the fixtures this campaign, after [referees’ body] PGMOL and the Premier League ruled that our 2024-25 home kit features too much white, thus clashing with Tottenham’s traditional colours,” sighed a club statement. Still, the black kits (RRP £80) may feel suitable in the light of Gunners fans’ worldwide mourning for Martin Ødegaard’s ankle-knack and Declan Rice’s suspension for kicking the ball away/Howard Webb hating Arsenal (delete as applicable). The bottom line? A win at Spurs could help the club shop shift that warehouse full of scratchy black polyester.

A review of how bereaved families were treated by the authorities after their relatives died in the 1989 Hillsborough disaster has recommended an overhaul in postmortem processes and communication, and the need for “empathy and understanding”.

More than 50% of female fans have experienced sexism at matches in England, with younger women, ethnic minorities and LGBTQ+ supporters particularly affected by a growing problem, according to a Kick It Out survey.

Manchester United’s net losses in their latest financial results? A cool £113m. United have recorded losses of more than £90m in three of the last four years, and were last profitable in 2019. This year’s deficit comes despite record full year revenues of £661.8m for the year ending 30 June. “We are working towards greater financial sustainability,” droned new Big Red suit Omar Berrada.

More news out of Manchester United now but we’ll let Hannah Blundell tell you: “Bad news is, I’m out for the season. But the good news is that I’m pregnant.” Congrats, Hannah!

The latest on Martin Ødegaard’s ankle-knack from the Norway camp is that there is “probably” no break. Three weeks on the physio table is the widely reported prediction.

Both Brazil and Argentina have suffered defeats in their qualifying campaigns for the Air Miles World Cup. Brazil lost their fourth in five as they went down 1-0 in Paraguay. “I know it’s a difficult time, but we just want to improve,” Vinícius Júnior wailed. Meanwhile, James Rodriguez was the match-winner as Colombia beat the world champions 2-1. Lionel Messi, 78, is still missing with knack.

And with England fans now going crazy for the growing cult of Lee Carsley, what of predecessor Gareth Southgate? “I’ve got lots of opportunities, I’m very open-minded to what’s next,” he blathered in a rare public appearance. “That might be in football, that might be outside of football. I’m just going to take some time, refresh, recharge and go from there.” A Clive Woodward-style move into rugby? The One Show? Manager of Manchester United under Big Sir Jim? Football Daily can’t wait to see what’s next.

He’s away at the moment, but Chaos in the Box, the new David Squires book, is coming. You can order it now through our bookshop and get a 20% discount.

Alex Morgan has left the sound of success behind and USA! USA!! USA!!! women’s football in a better place. Megan Swanick spills the tea on her feelings about the forward’s farewell in an extract from this week’s newsletter.

Which footballers have been punished for answering the call of nature? The Knowledge knows.

Brighton, boosted by the big signing of Fran Kirby, are next up in our series of Women’s Super League season previews.

The real revelation of England’s routine win over Finland was Rico Lewis, reckons Jonathan Liew, after watching the versatile Manchester City defender bring new perspective to an old left-back issue.

New USA USA USA men’s boss Mauricio Pochettino doesn’t have time on his side as he prepares for a home World Cup in 2026, writes Alexander Abnos.

But Craig Bellamy has bought himself a bunch of it after guiding Wales to four points from six in his first two games. A soaking Elis James is one of the excited fans revelling in Project Bellamy’s promising start.

Twenty years on from becoming the first Conference champions automatically promoted to the Football League, the Scarborough team of March 2007, pictured below in action against Worksop, are in freefall. That triumphant 1987 promotion under Neil Warnock (Craig Short and Kevin Blackwell were also on the books) was long forgotten with the Seadogs in seriously choppy waters as they fought relegation from the Conference League in front of a rather disgruntled gathering at the McCain Stadium. It all started to go wrong in 1999 when, after 12 seasons in the Football League, Scarborough were victims of one of football’s greatest Houdini acts: Carlisle goalkeeper Jimmy Glass coming up for a corner to score an injury-time winner against Plymouth, saving the Cumbrians and relegating Scarborough. They never recovered. After going into administration and being banished to the Conference North with a 10-point deduction in 2006, before they could slide further down the pyramid, one of the oldest clubs in football was wound up in June 2007 with debts of £2.5m. Today, football in the town lives on after the reformation of a phoenix club, Scarborough Athletic, just days after. They currently play in the sixth-tier National League North and have a new ground, the Flamingo Land Stadium. The old one? The frozen chips theme is still going after the McCain Stadium was knocked down and Lidl built on the old site. Scarborough Athletic sit 10th in the table after eight games, 12 points behind leaders, our old friends Firewall FC.