Poor Harry is living on Golden Pond-life
HARRY KANE. Hardly a loser in life but now it seems it is his turn to be the butt of the nation’s jokes.
The crime? Trying to add his name to the scoresheet.
The 24-year-old goal king has hardly put a foot wrong these past few years.
He is a two-time Golden Boot winner who kept social-media snipers at bay because of the sheer weight of his goals. Until he made the mistake of insisting he had found the net at Stoke earlier this month.
Did he or didn’t he? Does it really matter? Clearly it does to the marksman himself. But the pond-life that inhabits Twitter and the like renamed the Spurs striker Harry Klaim and the floodgates opened.
Goalscorer wants to be credited with scoring a goal. Outrageous.
Now, at this point, I have to say that not everyone on social media is pond-life.
For instance, the reaction to John Terry putting on his Chelsea kit to receive the Champions League trophy six years ago was amusing.
Even though he wasn’t playing, the ex-England skipper even remembered his shin pads when he changed for the ceremony.
Is there a difference? Well, yes. Terry didn’t play. Hadn’t contributed in that match, although the pictures afterwards suggest another story. And that was the whole point, was it not?
But Kane’s insistence on being marked down for touching Christian Eriksen’s cross-shot spawned a reaction that beggars belief. Next thing you know, the FA – the body which looks after the England team, no less – is joining in the fun. They issued a tweet last weekend in which Kane was mocked. Apparently, Chris Smalling (above) had the Spurs forward in his pocket according to a message posted on their feed after their FA Cup semifinal with Manchester United. This is only the bloke who is likely to be leading England onto the plane to Russia. The FA were forced to issue an apology. And rightly so. Next, we had the sight of PFA chairman Ben Purkiss taking a swipe at an awards dinner just 24 hours later.
It was a decent quip about Kane being ‘so prolific he is able to score without touching the ball.’
Purkiss says he has said sorry and explained the situation himself to the Spurs forward. He doesn’t feel the need for a formal public apology. I agree. After all, it was just a throwaway line.
Like this: If Purkiss had Kane’s ability and dedication, he might know what it was like to score for Spurs and England.
In this job I have met and interviewed thousands of footballers, including Kane, and I can say he is a great example of what the modernday player should be.
He is humble, hungry for success and he wants to score goals. And he’s bloody good at it.
The FA should know better. They are screaming out for role models yet, when they get one, they join in with the schoolboy-mentality mockery on social media.
In a football world full of blaggards, cheats and conmen, Kane is one of the good guys.
It doesn’t mean he should be above criticism, of course.
But, in this case, the public sentence doesn’t fit the crime.