Top players these days are the new rock or movie stars. They become household names, and are on the backs – and fronts – of newspapers. A lot of players get stick for the amount of money they earn and for not having the connection with the fans that players in earlier eras perhaps had. It’s true that some of them don’t do themselves any favours with the way they behave on occasion, but they are by no means the majority; a lot of players are hard-working, decent individuals who recognise how fortunate they are to be playing at a time when the game is awash with money for those who reach the top.
Our top division, the Premier League, has benefitted from all the big money, and there have been some big-name foreign stars who have graced the league and continue to do so. The temptation for clubs to widen their net when looking for talent has never been greater. The attraction of the Premier League means there are more than enough foreign players who are willing to play here, but that fact has also had a knock-on effect for young English talent, making it harder for our own youngsters to break through and reach the top. Later on in this book you will read about the dwindling number of English footballers playing in the Premier League, and one of the consequences of this trend is that there are fewer and fewer local kids who make it through to the first team with their local clubs and, more importantly, manage to stay there. In the past it was often the case that your club would have a few players in the side who had come through the ranks. They might even have been players who came from the same area you’re from. That sort of thing seems to be happening much less now, and it’s inevitable when you think of the footballing environment top clubs have to operate in. It’s sad in many ways, but it’s a fact of life.
So when you get players like Harry Kane and Mark Noble rising to the top, playing for the clubs they supported as kids and becoming local heroes, I think it’s worth hearing about just how they managed to do so, and the trials and tribulations they had to overcome in order to get there. They strike me as being similar in many ways. They are honest boys from ordinary backgrounds who had the drive, determination and inner-belief to make it into their respective first teams and stay there. It goes without saying that they also had to have talent in the first place, but talent will only get you so far – there are plenty of stories to illustrate how some very good young footballers don’t make it to the top.
I know Mark quite well because I was his manager for almost two years at West Ham, but until recently I had never met Harry Kane. Like lots of other people I’d watched his rise to the top with Tottenham and England during the past couple of years, and was delighted to see it happen. He seemed to be a class act both on and off the pitch, with the talent and character that would take him a long way in today’s game, and with that inner belief that helped him come through some trying times before he became the star name he is today.
‘It was tough at times,’ Harry admits. ‘I first started training with the first team when Harry Redknapp was manager, and you think you’re doing well and trying to get into the team, but in their eyes they’re probably not even thinking about playing you any time soon. Football these days, with more foreign players that are being brought in, as a youngster you can feel you’re on the cusp and then they might go and buy someone and you’re back training with the reserves. For me it was just a case of being patient. I went out on loan. The first couple of loans – at Leyton Orient and Millwall – were good, and when I came back from them I thought I might have a chance of getting a run in the team, but it didn’t really work out.’
Harry made his debut for the Tottenham first team in a Europa League match at White Hart Lane against Hearts five years ago and played a few more games in the competition for them. By that time he’d already had his loan spell with Orient and at the end of 2011 went on loan to Millwall. In the summer of 2012 Harry Redknapp left Tottenham and the club appointed André Villas-Boas in his place. A new manager presents a new challenge for any player because they naturally want to impress, especially if you’re a young, nineteen-year-old striker, as Kane was at the time.
‘I came back from the Under-19 Euros,’ he recalls. ‘AVB kind of said he wanted three strikers – two main strikers and another one – and he wanted me to be that third striker. I thought that would be perfect. I thought if I had a good pre-season I’d hopefully be in the squad for the Premier League games, maybe get some games and work my way into the team. But after pre-season I didn’t really get into the team. He said it was probably better if I went on loan, which was a kind of setback. They also bought Clint Dempsey on the final day of the transfer window, so that was his third striker, and from my point of view it was probably another year where I wasn’t going to be playing. And that’s when I went to Norwich on loan.’
It was supposed to be a season-long loan but it didn’t work out that way. As so often happens, Harry, like other players before him, had to deal with a season that produced some difficult times for him. He went to Norwich and got injured, breaking a metatarsal bone, which meant he went back to Tottenham for treatment before returning to Norwich. Then Spurs decided to recall him early from the loan spell, but after less than a month back at the club he was on his way again, this time to Leicester in the Championship for another loan period until the end of that season.
‘That loan started okay, but then I found myself on the bench and that was tough,’ he admits. ‘It was the first time I was living away from home and it was the first real time I hadn’t been playing. I was on the bench. My aim was always to go back as a Tottenham player and the loan was experience for me. But there were times when I was at Leicester that I thought, “I’m not even playing at Leicester. What are the chances of me playing in the Premier League any time soon?” There were doubts then that crept in, but I’m quite strong-minded and I thought to myself, “Look, be patient. You’re young and things can change in football so quick.” Even at that age I’d seen some careers go right up and then down. Some others had started slow and then come up, so I just knew I had to ride the wave and be patient.
‘The season after that, which was AVB’s second, I went on a pre-season trip to Portugal with the reserves and the first team went to Hong Kong, so I knew he wasn’t looking to put me in his plans that soon. The trip to Portugal was one of the best things that happened to me. I went with Tim Sherwood, Les Ferdinand and Chris Ramsey, got really fit and played a couple of games out there, then came back and had a really good pre-season. I surprised AVB and he said to me that he wanted to keep me there, but then they sold Gareth Bale and were buying player after player. From my point of view it was tough, because you’re doing well and thinking, “This might be my chance,” and then they get all that money and start spending it on new players. It’s another time where it tests your patience and how strong you are, how strong-minded you are. You could see all the players coming in, but I said to myself, “This is the season for me, I want to stay here and I want to prove that I’m good enough to be here. I don’t want to go on loan.” I didn’t want to just go, take the easy option and get a few games. I wanted to stay and battle it out – so I did, and it was the best I’d ever trained. I was on fire. I had other first-team players coming up to me saying, “You’ll be playing,” but I wasn’t getting any time. I was in the squad, but I was always nineteenth man. It was tough. I’d come home, talk to my family, talk to my agent. I’d think, “What else can I do? I’m the best player in training every day.”
‘My biggest fear was going on loan, and then someone getting injured and I’m not there. At the start of that season Emmanuel Adebayor was there, Jermain Defoe was there, Roberto Soldado had been bought and Dempsey was still there. AVB played one striker – you had four top strikers and they were big names as well. So never mind me not being happy to sit on the bench. None of them were going to be happy sitting on the bench! There were four strikers in my way, but I was adamant that I could get in front of them from what I saw in training. I knew that if I kept doing what I was doing, the older I got and the more physical I got, I was going to catch them up quicker than people thought. And that’s sort of what happened.
‘Adebayor