Tommy Martin: Quintessential Englishman Harry Kane hadn’t the stomach for guerrilla war

Tottenham Hotspur's Harry Kane warms up on the pitch ahead of the Premier League match against Wolves at the Molineux Stadium. Picture: David Davies/PA

Though he has the blood of Connemara in his veins, Harry Kane is the quintessential Englishman.

Kane’s Englishness is of a timeless quality — valiant, sturdy, a little bit dull — that you could imagine toting a longbow at Agincourt, charging with the Light Brigade, or landing on the beaches of Normandy.

He is the English everyman, a reassuringly bland presence for a nation that likes its heroism to be worn lightly. The secret to his popularity is that he would look equally at home waxing his hatchback on a suburban driveway as pillaging goals on Premier League playing fields.

The English can imagine Kane pottering about his garden with his childhood sweetheart wife and cherubic children, living the life of emotional reserve and tasteful consumption to which they would like to aspire. Kane satisfies the expectation that the spirit of Dunkirk resides in every Englishman’s potting shed, hidden under a tomato plant and some old copies of the Radio Times.

Even his name can be wrought to the requirements of the national cause, adapted by tabloids on the eve of big England games to suggest heroes ranging from Henry V to Michael Caine in the Italian Job. He is agreeably non-intellectual, as demonstrated by his blank response to a question about Brexit during Euro 2016, but charmingly twee, as shown when he arranged an adorably naff gender reveal for his third child — both these qualities very, very English.

His playing style, too, is satisfyingly roast beef and Yorkshire pud. Thumping headers, thwacked shots, straight galloping runs towards goal or slide-rule passes to team-mates. Nothing tricksy or exotic, save the odd exaggerated fall in the penalty box, of which no more will be said.

As for the saga concerning his desire to leave Tottenham, which has ended in him staying at Tottenham: nothing became Kane like the manner of his attempted leaving.

The accepted modus operandi in a situation like Kane’s requires a player to be prepared to torch his reputation with his current employer and their fans. Heavily under contract and in a straitened market place, a player must cause such uproar that the club will treat their departure like a form of pest control.

The industry expert in this regard is the super-agent Mino Raiola, who made his name by ferrying Zlatan Ibrahimovic from club to club upon the striker’s whim. Raiola sent his charge to war with his employers like a belligerent second at a bareknuckle brawl. Zlatan would abscond from training while Raiola turned up hours late for meetings with club directors. He once declared Johan Cruyff and Pep Guardiola should be put “in a mental asylum” at the fag end of the player’s unhappy spell in Barcelona.

There are countless examples of players utilising guerrilla tactics to extricate themselves from contractual undertakings: going AWOL from pre-season training, declaring mystery injuries and the like. But Kane is an Englishman, of a certain kind, which means his desires must be sublimated to propriety.

He is England captain and a Tottenham legend, and all of this rendered his efforts to leave with a sort of bumbling, stilted quality. In his pursuit of a move to Manchester City and the trophies for which he yearns, he resembled another popular English stereotype: Hugh Grant in rom-com mode, mumbling diffidently about “gentleman’s agreements” as the object of his affections stands confused in the rain.

The Kane saga even boasted that other favourite Richard Curtis device — a wedding, namely that of his brother and agent Charlie, who, according to a handily placed showbiz reporter for The Sun, used his happiest day to declare that Harry’s move to City was all systems go. One could imagine Hugh/Harry, head in hands at the top table, muttering “Oh Charlie, time and a place, old chap.”

Kane’s campaign to leave Tottenham was a very English coup, bearing the hallmarks of the many bungled military escapades from his nation’s imperial past. 

In appointing Charlie as his agent (Charlie’s player management firm, CK66, has a client list of one) Kane ensured that, in the transfer trenches, this would be another case of lions led by donkeys. A six-year contract, signed in 2018 without any buyout clause, represented shaky terrain from which to attack. Ranged against the Kanes was a steadfast enemy, Daniel Levy, for whom contracts and valuations are things written in blood.

With his bald dome and piercing stare, the Tottenham chairman can himself seem like a two-dimensional movie character — but in his case, it is the form of a cackling Bond villain that comes to mind, his laser beam inching closer to our floppy-haired hero’s private parts as deadline day ticked closer.

When Kane told Gary Neville that maybe Tottenham would accept a bid of £100m and everyone would shake hands and be happy, one could imagine Levy shrieking at his henchmen in his underground lair. Failing to persuade Levy to accept a low-ball bid from a club that is richer than God, Kane could not fully commit to the full unseemly spectacle of a classic transfer wrangle.

His attempt to boycott training was short-lived and the resultant questions about his professionalism seemed to shake his resolve. He ended up shuffling back to Hotspur Way muttering about more misunderstandings and gentlemen’s agreements, waiting for a mega-bid that would never come.

Hanging on in quiet desperation is the English way, in the words of the Pink Floyd song. Kane will probably get his move next summer but will spend another of his peak seasons in Tottenham’s trophyless toil. He has thanked the fans for their support and settled back into his rightful position in society: England captain, Spurs legend. He comes out of this looking sad, dutiful and a little bit dim.

Every bit the English hero.