I see young Kane grimacing and grabbing his crotch (for protection?). Who's to say that Wenger isn't lurking!Seriously. The only surprise here is that the team photo of the 8 year old gooners Shows the poor kids fully clothed & auntie Wenger is not in the background with a packet of sweets and a cheeky smile.aulinholol:
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WindyCOYS
The Fighting Cock
I would also question what his choices were at such an age...
Clearly, Woolwich were catering for kids that young (after school, I'd imagine?). No surprise given Wenger's ways.
We've only been improving our youth setup in recent years, so I have no clue as to how young our previous academy extended.
WindyCOYS , could you drop the fucking knowledge, blud, on what Kane's situation would have been in, say, 2001?
"Playing for Ridgeway Rovers in east London, the same youth side David Beckham and Andros Townsend played for, Kane was scouted by Gunners spies and joined the club as an eight-year-old.
He spent a year in the red half of north London before returning to his amateur childhood side after Woolwich let him leave.
From Ridgeway, he joined Watford's youth set up where he spent two months before being snapped up by Tottenham as an 11-year-old.
And he has been at Spurs ever since, making his mark in the first-team this season with his excellent goal scoring run."
Some stuff written yesterday in The Guardian about Ridge Rovers and Kane:
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jan/08/ridgeway-rovers-david-beckham-harry-kane
http://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2015/jan/08/ridgeway-rovers-david-beckham-harry-kane
Kane played for Woolwich?! 
Nothing to do but sell I reckon:chadliblow:.
Nothing to do but sell I reckon:chadliblow:.
The fact they are digging out archived photos to try and shit on our parade is pretty laughable and desperate.
Fact is, Kane is playing for us now. Whatever happened in the past is in the past (Bale was allegedly a gooner, doesn't tarnish my memory of him at all), whatever happens in the future doesn't matter right now. At the moment he's in great form scoring for fun.
Fact is, Kane is playing for us now. Whatever happened in the past is in the past (Bale was allegedly a gooner, doesn't tarnish my memory of him at all), whatever happens in the future doesn't matter right now. At the moment he's in great form scoring for fun.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/fo...y-from-Woolwich-reject-to-Tottenham-hero.html
Bit of a naughty dig
Flav
....
As an indication of how things have changed at Tottenham this season, the subtle alteration in one of the fans’ chants is as accurate a barometer as any. Immediately after his £26 million transfer from Valencia in 2013, the centre-forward Roberto Soldado was greeted with a chorus of:
“Soldado, he came from sunny Spain, to play at White Hart Lane.”
It was a celebratory air: that someone of Soldado’s prowess had chosen to pursue his trade in north London was reckoned something worthy of acclaim. Latterly, however, the Spaniard’s sporadic contributions on the pitch have been differently serenaded.
“Soldado,” goes the new variation on the chant, “he came from sunny Spain, to train with Harry Kane.”
An expensive, established foreign talent now playing second fiddle to a 21-year-old local lad: as a marker of the sudden, dramatic shift in football dynamic at Spurs it could not be more telling. Suddenly, instead of relying on pricey imports, it is a young man from Chingford, who graduated through the Tottenham youth ranks, who is supplying the goals. And lots of them, too - 17 so far this season.
It is a change that has put a spring in the step of Spurs supporters, thrilled that their team is being led by a youngster who is not only local, not only a fellow fan, but seemingly of genuine class. At White Hart Lane they now chant loud and long about the merits of “Harry Kane, he’s one of our own”. And this about a player that many anticipated would spend the season on loan elsewhere.
“I remember having a chat with some fellow supporters back in the summer and I said I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry Kane ended up being our number one striker by the end of the season. And one of my mates actually laughed in my face,” says the Tottenham blogger Chris Miller, who first saw Kane play as a 15-year-old for the club’s under 18s. “But even so, no one predicted the sort of impact he has had.”
It was after Tottenham’s victory against Chelsea, in which Kane scored two while eviscerating the visitors’ renowned defence, that Miller says the fans began to realise quite what a revolutionary time this was. As if rare victory over Chelsea were not cause enough for celebration, here was a Spurs side being driven by a player who might have been whistled down from the stands just before kick off.
“Nobody thought he was the guy who was going to give that performance against Chelsea," added Miller. "A world class display against a top-class defence like that from one of our own? Nobody saw that coming.”
Electric blue: Harry Kane strikes against Chelsea
Except, perhaps, Harry Kane. Although only 21, Kane has always been a player with an unwavering confidence in his own abilities.
“For me, the quality that made him stand out as a youngster was this incredible self-belief,” says Les Ferdinand, the former under-21 coach at Tottenham, now at Queen’s Park Rangers. “What he was he was very single minded. He always knew precisely where he wanted to go.”
And where he wanted to go was always to Tottenham. Born in Walthamstow, just five miles from White Hart Lane, to a family of passionate Spurs supporters, Kane attended Chingford Foundation School, the educational establishment that boasts David Beckham among its former pupils. Although football was important in his family, none of his relatives were particularly distinguished players.
Kane, however, was noticed at an early age. When he was eight, and playing for Ridgeway Rovers, the same junior club where Beckham and Andros Townsend began their careers, he was spotted by an Woolwich scout and spent a year at the club’s academy before being released. Which must have been an interesting detour as he was already a regular in the stands at White Hart Lane. He was then picked up by Watford, before being again let go. He finally arrived at Spurs as an 11-year-old.
Young Gunner: Harry Kane (circled) was on Woolwich's book as a child
The reason he did not initially turn heads in the academy system was that he wasn’t big and he wasn’t particularly quick, the two attributes much valued in youth development.
“I first saw Harry when, as the under-18 coach, I would take the under-14s once a week,” says Alex Inglethorpe, the former Tottenham Academy director, now working at Liverpool. “Harry would have been 13 at the time, and given that his is a late July birthday, he was still playing catch up with some of the group from a physical perspective. But he was always a promising technician and a very genuine young man with a wonderful desire to improve.”
As he began to grow he could marry his skill to a gathering physicality.
“When he first came into the under-18s as a 15 year old, he stood out in the sense he looked a bit gangly,” recalls Miller. “He moved slightly awkwardly, he was a bit cumbersome. But look closer, he had a lot of ability, a great technique. I think he surprised people how good he was. Tactically he was very flexible. He often played in midfield. I remember seeing him once playing as a holding midfielder.”
But it was his attitude that most impressed those who worked with him.
“Harry was always someone who was going to get better just by the sheer volume of work he was willing to do, and by the mentality he would demonstrate on a daily basis to invest in himself. He had a fantastic desire to improve and would always want to do extra work at the end of a session,” recalls Inglethorpe. “He became obsessive about his finishing in all its various forms and would dedicate a huge amount of time to improve these aspects of his game.”
All that practice paid off: as anyone who has seen him in action this season will recognise he rarely misses the target, hitting the ball hard and low towards the corner of the goal.
“We worked a lot on his shooting,” says Ferdinand, who conducted endless individual sessions at the young player’s request. “I always said to Tim [Sherwood, then Ferdinand’s colleague working with the Tottenham u-21s], his movement reminds me of [Teddy] Sheringham, in that he drops into holes and automatically takes up clever positions. But he strikes ball like Alan Shearer. Look at Alan’s goals, a lot of them are hit with pure venom. He very rarely tapped in. Harry’s like that. When he hits them, they’re going in.”
But what has made the real difference this season has been that his finishing has been conducted for the benefit of the first team. Under Sherwood’s direction, Tottenham had embraced a policy of sending out young players on loan, allowing other clubs to carry out research and development on their behalf.
Eastern promise: Kane had a spell on loan at Leyton Orient early in his career
Kane himself had spells of indifferent return at Orient, Millwall, Leicester and Norwich. And while Sherwood, in his brief spell as manager, had given Kane his first team debut, it was the arrival of Mauriccio Pochettino that saw the player gifted a decent run, tasked with the responsibility of leading the line.
“For some time there had been a lot of talk about the Spurs academy, and how the club was investing in bringing through its own,” says Martin Cloake, a long-time season ticket holder. “But there hadn’t been much evidence of that. I’d increasingly thought it was PR guff. And I think among supporters too there was a sense that the way to get success was to buy in established talent. So in a way it was a surprise to see a foreign manager come in and apparently take the view that the best prospects were those under his nose.”
It is the connection between the player on the pitch and the fan in the stand that has so enthused the supporters, bringing a noticeably feelgood edge to this, yet another of Tottenham’s traditional seasons of transition.
“There’s a natural pleasure in seeing one of us succeed,” says Cloake. “The last player we could really identify with like that was Steve Perryman. Not just somebody wearing the shirt for a couple of years before heading off to a better offer. That sense of identity has been lost for many supporters, not just at Spurs. I guess Kane has been so seized upon because he represents a return to old values. Having someone who cares for the club as much as you do, who’s a fan like you, it’s a nice reaction to what’s happening with football generally.”
And Kane may well be the harbinger of a conveyor belt of academy promise. As well as Townsend, Ryan Mason and Nabil Benteleb, who have already become first team regulars alongside him, Pochettino is said to be impressed by the claims of Kenny McIlvoy, Harry Winks, Connor Ogilvie, Kyle Walker-Peters and Milos Veljkovic.
“I’d started to lose the belief that our youngsters would ever be given a proper chance,” says Chris Miller. “I’d really lost hope. So it’s nice we’ve got a manager who has faith in young players.”
Spotlight: Harry Kane has been the man of the moment for Spurs this season
As for Kane, the next step is into a slightly different white shirt. After his display against Chelsea, Marca, the Spanish newspaper, declared him one of Europe’s brightest talents. A call up for the national team – while not exactly at the top of the Tottenham fans’ wish list for the player – is imminent. For Ferdinand, international recognition cannot come soon enough. Kane has, Ferdinand reckons, the mental and tactical agility to embrace such promotion with aplomb.
“I’d call Harry a nine and half,” he says of the player’s flexibility. “He can hold up the ball, back to goal as well as any. He’s very dynamic in his movement, wants to be heading towards goal every time he gets the ball. But if he needs to drop back and thicken up the midfield, play as a No10, he has football intelligence to pick up right positions.
"He has got in great shape. If you’d have asked me three years ago what was his drawback, I’d have said maybe he lacked a bit of pace. But you wouldn’t say that now watching him in the Premier League. He’s found a way to work.
He knows where the goal is, knows what he wants to do, knows how to get there. I tell you what Harry Kane is, he’s the thinking man’s player.”
In which case, it would be little wonder if Roberto Soldado did indeed relish the prospect of training alongside him.
Bit of a naughty dig
Flav
....As an indication of how things have changed at Tottenham this season, the subtle alteration in one of the fans’ chants is as accurate a barometer as any. Immediately after his £26 million transfer from Valencia in 2013, the centre-forward Roberto Soldado was greeted with a chorus of:
“Soldado, he came from sunny Spain, to play at White Hart Lane.”
It was a celebratory air: that someone of Soldado’s prowess had chosen to pursue his trade in north London was reckoned something worthy of acclaim. Latterly, however, the Spaniard’s sporadic contributions on the pitch have been differently serenaded.
“Soldado,” goes the new variation on the chant, “he came from sunny Spain, to train with Harry Kane.”
An expensive, established foreign talent now playing second fiddle to a 21-year-old local lad: as a marker of the sudden, dramatic shift in football dynamic at Spurs it could not be more telling. Suddenly, instead of relying on pricey imports, it is a young man from Chingford, who graduated through the Tottenham youth ranks, who is supplying the goals. And lots of them, too - 17 so far this season.
It is a change that has put a spring in the step of Spurs supporters, thrilled that their team is being led by a youngster who is not only local, not only a fellow fan, but seemingly of genuine class. At White Hart Lane they now chant loud and long about the merits of “Harry Kane, he’s one of our own”. And this about a player that many anticipated would spend the season on loan elsewhere.
“I remember having a chat with some fellow supporters back in the summer and I said I wouldn’t be surprised if Harry Kane ended up being our number one striker by the end of the season. And one of my mates actually laughed in my face,” says the Tottenham blogger Chris Miller, who first saw Kane play as a 15-year-old for the club’s under 18s. “But even so, no one predicted the sort of impact he has had.”
It was after Tottenham’s victory against Chelsea, in which Kane scored two while eviscerating the visitors’ renowned defence, that Miller says the fans began to realise quite what a revolutionary time this was. As if rare victory over Chelsea were not cause enough for celebration, here was a Spurs side being driven by a player who might have been whistled down from the stands just before kick off.
“Nobody thought he was the guy who was going to give that performance against Chelsea," added Miller. "A world class display against a top-class defence like that from one of our own? Nobody saw that coming.”
Electric blue: Harry Kane strikes against Chelsea
Except, perhaps, Harry Kane. Although only 21, Kane has always been a player with an unwavering confidence in his own abilities.
“For me, the quality that made him stand out as a youngster was this incredible self-belief,” says Les Ferdinand, the former under-21 coach at Tottenham, now at Queen’s Park Rangers. “What he was he was very single minded. He always knew precisely where he wanted to go.”
And where he wanted to go was always to Tottenham. Born in Walthamstow, just five miles from White Hart Lane, to a family of passionate Spurs supporters, Kane attended Chingford Foundation School, the educational establishment that boasts David Beckham among its former pupils. Although football was important in his family, none of his relatives were particularly distinguished players.
Kane, however, was noticed at an early age. When he was eight, and playing for Ridgeway Rovers, the same junior club where Beckham and Andros Townsend began their careers, he was spotted by an Woolwich scout and spent a year at the club’s academy before being released. Which must have been an interesting detour as he was already a regular in the stands at White Hart Lane. He was then picked up by Watford, before being again let go. He finally arrived at Spurs as an 11-year-old.
Young Gunner: Harry Kane (circled) was on Woolwich's book as a child
The reason he did not initially turn heads in the academy system was that he wasn’t big and he wasn’t particularly quick, the two attributes much valued in youth development.
“I first saw Harry when, as the under-18 coach, I would take the under-14s once a week,” says Alex Inglethorpe, the former Tottenham Academy director, now working at Liverpool. “Harry would have been 13 at the time, and given that his is a late July birthday, he was still playing catch up with some of the group from a physical perspective. But he was always a promising technician and a very genuine young man with a wonderful desire to improve.”
As he began to grow he could marry his skill to a gathering physicality.
“When he first came into the under-18s as a 15 year old, he stood out in the sense he looked a bit gangly,” recalls Miller. “He moved slightly awkwardly, he was a bit cumbersome. But look closer, he had a lot of ability, a great technique. I think he surprised people how good he was. Tactically he was very flexible. He often played in midfield. I remember seeing him once playing as a holding midfielder.”
But it was his attitude that most impressed those who worked with him.
“Harry was always someone who was going to get better just by the sheer volume of work he was willing to do, and by the mentality he would demonstrate on a daily basis to invest in himself. He had a fantastic desire to improve and would always want to do extra work at the end of a session,” recalls Inglethorpe. “He became obsessive about his finishing in all its various forms and would dedicate a huge amount of time to improve these aspects of his game.”
All that practice paid off: as anyone who has seen him in action this season will recognise he rarely misses the target, hitting the ball hard and low towards the corner of the goal.
“We worked a lot on his shooting,” says Ferdinand, who conducted endless individual sessions at the young player’s request. “I always said to Tim [Sherwood, then Ferdinand’s colleague working with the Tottenham u-21s], his movement reminds me of [Teddy] Sheringham, in that he drops into holes and automatically takes up clever positions. But he strikes ball like Alan Shearer. Look at Alan’s goals, a lot of them are hit with pure venom. He very rarely tapped in. Harry’s like that. When he hits them, they’re going in.”
But what has made the real difference this season has been that his finishing has been conducted for the benefit of the first team. Under Sherwood’s direction, Tottenham had embraced a policy of sending out young players on loan, allowing other clubs to carry out research and development on their behalf.
Eastern promise: Kane had a spell on loan at Leyton Orient early in his career
Kane himself had spells of indifferent return at Orient, Millwall, Leicester and Norwich. And while Sherwood, in his brief spell as manager, had given Kane his first team debut, it was the arrival of Mauriccio Pochettino that saw the player gifted a decent run, tasked with the responsibility of leading the line.
“For some time there had been a lot of talk about the Spurs academy, and how the club was investing in bringing through its own,” says Martin Cloake, a long-time season ticket holder. “But there hadn’t been much evidence of that. I’d increasingly thought it was PR guff. And I think among supporters too there was a sense that the way to get success was to buy in established talent. So in a way it was a surprise to see a foreign manager come in and apparently take the view that the best prospects were those under his nose.”
It is the connection between the player on the pitch and the fan in the stand that has so enthused the supporters, bringing a noticeably feelgood edge to this, yet another of Tottenham’s traditional seasons of transition.
“There’s a natural pleasure in seeing one of us succeed,” says Cloake. “The last player we could really identify with like that was Steve Perryman. Not just somebody wearing the shirt for a couple of years before heading off to a better offer. That sense of identity has been lost for many supporters, not just at Spurs. I guess Kane has been so seized upon because he represents a return to old values. Having someone who cares for the club as much as you do, who’s a fan like you, it’s a nice reaction to what’s happening with football generally.”
And Kane may well be the harbinger of a conveyor belt of academy promise. As well as Townsend, Ryan Mason and Nabil Benteleb, who have already become first team regulars alongside him, Pochettino is said to be impressed by the claims of Kenny McIlvoy, Harry Winks, Connor Ogilvie, Kyle Walker-Peters and Milos Veljkovic.
“I’d started to lose the belief that our youngsters would ever be given a proper chance,” says Chris Miller. “I’d really lost hope. So it’s nice we’ve got a manager who has faith in young players.”
Spotlight: Harry Kane has been the man of the moment for Spurs this season
As for Kane, the next step is into a slightly different white shirt. After his display against Chelsea, Marca, the Spanish newspaper, declared him one of Europe’s brightest talents. A call up for the national team – while not exactly at the top of the Tottenham fans’ wish list for the player – is imminent. For Ferdinand, international recognition cannot come soon enough. Kane has, Ferdinand reckons, the mental and tactical agility to embrace such promotion with aplomb.
“I’d call Harry a nine and half,” he says of the player’s flexibility. “He can hold up the ball, back to goal as well as any. He’s very dynamic in his movement, wants to be heading towards goal every time he gets the ball. But if he needs to drop back and thicken up the midfield, play as a No10, he has football intelligence to pick up right positions.
"He has got in great shape. If you’d have asked me three years ago what was his drawback, I’d have said maybe he lacked a bit of pace. But you wouldn’t say that now watching him in the Premier League. He’s found a way to work.
He knows where the goal is, knows what he wants to do, knows how to get there. I tell you what Harry Kane is, he’s the thinking man’s player.”
In which case, it would be little wonder if Roberto Soldado did indeed relish the prospect of training alongside him.
Deffo worth listening to the intro of this pod again if you haven't lately
Eastern promise: Kane had a spell on loan at Leyton Orient early in his career
He's carrying a bit of Poch baby fat on his face!
nah. obviously bale is miles better but i wouldn't swap them out of priniciple
This, fuck Bale...Kane will be at his peak when Bale is past it and starts getting caught by defenders with less pace than Gary Doc.
It's his ringtone
Im sure he got a starting spot through his ability rather than wearing Poch's baby fat on his face. Poch isn't Wenger you know.
Based on my analysis of football, I always believed there are five kinds of strikers (Some may overlap between categories)
A. World Class finishers
Can be termed world class due to the fact that they are the 1 in 2 good chance or better finishers. Normally depend on the team to supply them with chances and bury them the moment they get a sniff of goal. The likes of Aguero, Lewandowski, etc belong here.
B. World Class goalscorers
This category strikers are the ones who make goals on their own and score world class goals which are unstoppable. And depending on the consistency with which they score these kind of goals, they can be termed world class. E.g Ibrahimovic and Suarez. Suarez is a good example of belonging to category B but not A since he misses a good number of chances, but also makes a lot of his own goals and scores world beaters.
C. Really Good Strikers
These are your top 15-20% strikers, who finish 1 in 3-4 good chances and sometimes on their day are absolutely devastating. The likes of Higuan, Benzema belong here etc And depending on their recent form, they will be classified as really good to world class, but they also go through spells where they miss lots of chances.
D. Decent Strikers
Your normal 1 in 5/6 chances guys, Defoe was a classic example for this one. Miss several chances, but on their day, they can be a handful.
E. The others
Not really great strikers, but again, they can have good spells and depending on the teams they play for, they can chip in with their share of goals.
Now why am I saying all this, I always believed Harry was a category D striker. And I felt if he worked hard, he can become a category C striker, which again is on the verge of being world class, but not quite there, which, to be honest is actually quite good for a team like Spurs. But the game against Chelsea changed everything. If you think about it, Harry did everything. He scored goals which he created on his own, he was clinical, he finished all chances he got and he was genuinely looked like a mix of category A and B. If he consistently able to produce this, we have a new breed of striker. One that is truly world class.
His next challenge is going to be being double/triple marked, but because of his nature of running and off the ball moment, and his change of pace movement, I think we have a genuine world class player who we can nurture. I know people are comparing him to Muller, but based on the performance against Chelsea, I think he is more of a Lewandowski/Ibra hybrid, not saying he is as good as them, but making goals of his own, scoring world class goals and finishing them in the bottom corner? He is special. Hope he doesn't get distracted by the increased focus on his life.
A. World Class finishers
Can be termed world class due to the fact that they are the 1 in 2 good chance or better finishers. Normally depend on the team to supply them with chances and bury them the moment they get a sniff of goal. The likes of Aguero, Lewandowski, etc belong here.
B. World Class goalscorers
This category strikers are the ones who make goals on their own and score world class goals which are unstoppable. And depending on the consistency with which they score these kind of goals, they can be termed world class. E.g Ibrahimovic and Suarez. Suarez is a good example of belonging to category B but not A since he misses a good number of chances, but also makes a lot of his own goals and scores world beaters.
C. Really Good Strikers
These are your top 15-20% strikers, who finish 1 in 3-4 good chances and sometimes on their day are absolutely devastating. The likes of Higuan, Benzema belong here etc And depending on their recent form, they will be classified as really good to world class, but they also go through spells where they miss lots of chances.
D. Decent Strikers
Your normal 1 in 5/6 chances guys, Defoe was a classic example for this one. Miss several chances, but on their day, they can be a handful.
E. The others
Not really great strikers, but again, they can have good spells and depending on the teams they play for, they can chip in with their share of goals.
Now why am I saying all this, I always believed Harry was a category D striker. And I felt if he worked hard, he can become a category C striker, which again is on the verge of being world class, but not quite there, which, to be honest is actually quite good for a team like Spurs. But the game against Chelsea changed everything. If you think about it, Harry did everything. He scored goals which he created on his own, he was clinical, he finished all chances he got and he was genuinely looked like a mix of category A and B. If he consistently able to produce this, we have a new breed of striker. One that is truly world class.
His next challenge is going to be being double/triple marked, but because of his nature of running and off the ball moment, and his change of pace movement, I think we have a genuine world class player who we can nurture. I know people are comparing him to Muller, but based on the performance against Chelsea, I think he is more of a Lewandowski/Ibra hybrid, not saying he is as good as them, but making goals of his own, scoring world class goals and finishing them in the bottom corner? He is special. Hope he doesn't get distracted by the increased focus on his life.
‘I always believed in my ability’ Tottenham star reflects on sensational season after initial struggles
http://www.london24.com/sport/footb...onal_season_after_initial_struggles_1_3912501
http://www.london24.com/sport/footb...onal_season_after_initial_struggles_1_3912501
