Chapter 259: Home Debut I

Craig played him at Oldham on the Saturday, for the last 21 minutes, and Wilf saw it from the away end with the rest of the town.

He had paid at the window like everybody else. I picked him out 3 rows below me and Raj, on his own, with the sleet settling on his shoulders.

Mahrez had put us ahead before half-time with a shot that went in off the far post. ting. They levelled with 23 minutes left, a header at the back post from a corner, and 2 minutes after that Sadler sent the boy on for Gray.

"Which one is he?" Raj said. "The tall one?"

"The tall one."

"They are all tall up here. It is the weather."

He never got a clean shot away. He came short for everything we hit at him, took it with a man on his back, and set it for whoever was running. Twice he found Vardy with a pass I had not seen was on.

"Oh, look," Raj said. "Look at that. Who taught him that?"

With a minute to go he got his head to a corner 10 yards out and put it over the bar. He stood there afterwards with both hands on his head while the whole away end groaned.

"He can play, that one," Raj said. "Can’t he?"

"He can play."

1-1. When it was over Wilf came up the steps past us, slow on the wet concrete.

"I saw him," he said, and kept going.

Raj watched him all the way to the exit. "Is that a good one or a bad one?"

"That is Wilf."

"You are not going after him? Ask him what he thought?"

"If it mattered, he would have stopped."

Raj jangled his keys at me and we went to find the Vauxhall. 39 points.

On the Monday afternoon I was at the training ground fence when Sadler came and stood beside me.

The boy was on the near pitch with the bag of balls. Sid Hollis had stayed out in goal for him, in his gloves and an old woolly hat, and he was diving for every one. pock off the boot. rustle of the side netting.

"That is 4 in a row, boss," Sid called over, getting up slowly. "My knees are 50 years old. Tell him to miss one."

"He starts tomorrow night," Sadler said.

"I did not ask you."

"You did not need to. You have been stood at this fence every afternoon for a week." He was watching the boy, not me. "Vardy is red. Dev says the left hamstring is tight again, and Vardy says it is fine, so he is red."

"And Gray?"

"Gray ran himself into the ground at Oldham. And the lad put 9 out of 10 past Sid this morning, with Sid trying."

"Then he starts."

"He starts because of what I saw this morning," Sadler said. "That is my eyes, Sam. Not your fence."

He went back across the grass to the changing rooms. I stayed where I was, and the first thing I thought was that there would be no fee on Tuesday. The second thing I thought was that he still did not know there was a fee.

By 7 on the Tuesday there was a queue at every turnstile, and the longest went back round the corner past the chip shop.

Erol was at the hatch and Murat at the urn. hiss of the steam. A lot of the queue were kids with a pound coin and a grown-up, and the rest had come straight from work in their boots.

At turnstile 3 a lad with the start of a moustache was holding a pound coin out to Les.

"I am 15," he said.

"You were 15 when I was courting," Les said. "Full price, Connor, or go home and tell your mum."

Connor paid full price. The boy behind him went through for a pound with his grandad.

Maureen was in the turnstile office with the counter readouts in front of her. She did not look up when I put my head in.

"5,100," she said. "And they are still coming, on a Tuesday, against Hartlepool."

"Will we open the corner?"

"I opened it at half past 6."

Ted was in his place under the roof with a flask in his lap. He waited until I had sat down beside him before he reached into his coat for his wallet.

"They have cut me," he said. "I went in this morning to look. 40 to 1. The girl had to ring through again, and then she gave me a funny look."

He showed me the slip, folded in 4 and soft at the corners. "Mine still says 100."

"You will not get 100 again, Ted."

"I do not need it again. I have got it." He put the wallet back inside his coat and patted it. "Every game you win, my 10 pounds gets cleverer. Who is this Kane, then? Paper says Tottenham."

"He is Tottenham’s. We have him till May."

"Tottenham." Ted unscrewed the flask. "When I was a boy, Tottenham would not have lent us the steam off their tea."

"Watch him, Ted."

"I watch all of them, son."

When the teams were due I left him to his tea and went round to the main stand.

Raj had the seat beside mine, 3 rows behind our dugout, because I had wanted him there for this one. Margaret was on my other side.

"Is that him?" Raj said, as the teams came out. "He looks about 12."

"He is 19."

"He looks about 12 and very tall."

crackle of the speakers. The announcer read our team, and when he got to the end of it he slowed down.

"And making his home debut tonight, on loan from Tottenham Hotspur, Harry Kane."

There was polite applause. Behind me a man said, "Who?" and his mate said, "Tottenham. On loan."

In the away corner 38 had come down from Hartlepool, all of them in the same 3 rows behind a flag tied to the fence. "POOLS," one of them shouted as their side ran out, and the other 37 took it up. "POOLS. POOLS."

fweet of the whistle.

Hartlepool sat in from the first minute: 10 men behind the ball in 2 banks, and a lad up front on his own who spent the first half hour chasing Stokes’s passes and never caught one.

The boy’s first touch was a long ball out of our half. He took it on his chest, let their centre-half lean on him, and laid it off to Kanté with the outside of his foot. tap. Then he turned and ran into the space he had made.

"Oh, he is clever," Raj said. "Did you see that? He made that man look like a coat stand."

Twice in 20 minutes he dropped off their back 4 into the hole and played the ball wide to Mahrez.

"Why does he keep going backwards?" Raj said. "He is the striker. Strikers go forwards. Even I know that."

"He is looking for the ball."

"He wants to look for it nearer their goal, then."

The second time, Mahrez went past his full-back on the outside and hit it across the 6-yard box. There was nobody in the middle. The boy was still 30 yards out, where he had played the pass from.

"KANE." Robbie Doyle was off the bench with his hands round his mouth, so loud the people in front of us flinched. "YOU PLAY IT, THEN YOU GET IN THE MIDDLE. IN THE MIDDLE, SON."

Sadler stood behind him with his hands in his coat pockets and let Doyle do the shouting. Out on the pitch the boy put a hand up to show he had heard.

"He wants to be in 2 places at once," Margaret said.

"Doyle will tell him."

"SQUEEZE," their manager was yelling at his back 4. "SQUEEZE UP. GET OUT."

"Ref, he is holding," a man shouted from the row behind us. "He has got 2 handfuls of the lad’s shirt."

On 34 minutes Kanté stole the ball off their midfield 10 yards inside our half. scuff of his toe getting in first.

"Go on," Raj said, half out of his seat already. "Go on, go on."

This time the boy had not dropped off. He was on the shoulder of their last man, where Doyle had bellowed him to be, and when Kanté gave it to Mahrez he was already moving.

Mahrez came in off the right on his left foot. Their full-back went with him, and the boy slipped off his centre-half into the gap between them, and Mahrez slid it into his path.

He took one touch with his right foot to set it, across his body. Then he hit it with the same foot, low, from 18 yards, at the height of every ball I had watched him hit at Sid all week.

zip of the ball across the wet grass. Their keeper went down to his right and did not get a hand near it. swish of the far corner of the net.

1-0.

ROAR, from every side of the ground at once.

He stood still on the edge of the box with both hands on his head, the way he had at Oldham after the header. Then Mahrez reached him, and Pett, and the rest. Over Mahrez’s shoulder he found Kanté and pointed.

I looked down at the dugout. Sadler was at the front of the technical area and had not moved. I wanted him to look up at the stand. He spoke to Doyle over his shoulder, and sat down.

The announcer came back on. "Tilbrook goal, scored by Harry Kane."

"KANE," a man down the front of the Bovril End yelled. Then another voice, higher: "HAR-RY."

Back near our own box, Maguire turned round to look. Half the Bovril End saw him do it and laughed. He grinned, put both hands up, and turned to clap the boy.

"HAR-RY KANE," the terrace sorted it out between them. clap. clap. "HAR-RY KANE." clap. clap.

Raj came in late and loud. "Look at you," he said, when he stopped. "You look like you scored it yourself."

"I signed him."

"Hark at him. I signed him." He leaned across me. "Did you hear that, Margaret? He signed him."

"I was in the room," Margaret said.

I sat back with my arms folded, grinning at the pitch.

"Watch him now," I said, when they had kicked off again. "Watch where he goes when we lose it."

"Back," Raj said, with a mouthful of crisps. "He goes back."

"Every time. And when it goes wide, look, he does not stand still. He comes off the back of the man, so the cross has somewhere to go."

"Is that right." Raj crunched a crisp. "Alright, Wilf."