The winner is chosen by a hundred leading sports journalists from the top hundred footballing nations.
Harry is a worthy winner. He is a humble man from a working class East London family and reaching the pinnacle of football was by no means an easy journey for him. He had to work hard to get there, overcoming plenty of disappointments and self-doubts. As a teenager, he trained after the other lads had gone home, educating his left foot to become as lethal as his right boot.
Whereas some top players move around from club to club, Harry has really only had two clubs during his career - Tottenham Hotspur from London and Bayern Munich over in Germany where he currently plays. In his club career, he has scored 329 goals and 91 goals at full international level. However, Harry is more than a goalscorer, he is a team player. With his excellent heading ability, he can be very effective in defence and he is a great long distance passer of the ball too. Reflecting on his career, last night Harry Kane wrote this: "Work hard in silence. Let success be your noise" and that remark kind of sums him up. It is why he is a good leader on the pitch - other players follow his example.
By the way, in the header picture I notice the little poppy on his lapel to remember Great Britain's war dead. Discreet and unremarked by others.
Speaking of Harry's Ballon d'Or success, former England and Newcastle legend Alan Shearer said, "I think the best thing for me is how humble Harry is. Footballers are like movie stars nowadays. You see them walking down the red carpet and some of them are in sunglasses when it's pitch black and eight o'clock at night. Harry is just normal, as normal as they come."
That remark about the sunglasses made me chuckle.
Sadly, I have just heard that The President of The United States is very resentful about Harry's award and believes that he should have got The Ballon d'Or instead. It would look so great in The Oval Office next to his FIFA Peace Prize and Maria Corina Machado's Nobel peace prize that he has, of course, now stuck inside a vulgar gilded frame.
Well done Harry!
Congrats to him and England!
ReplyDeleteOur president should get Le Ballon d'Idiot. Congratulations to this deserving winner; he sounds like a great guy.
ReplyDeleteThis sounds a guy that you would really like to watch.
ReplyDeleteOddly I have heard of him. I watched him speak and he seems quite self effacing.
ReplyDeleteApart from you, there is no one more humble. In fact, his whole family are the most down to earth, decent people.
ReplyDeleteI have a reliable source for this information. 😁
Revile me if you wish, but I don't think sports people, even the best ones, are Heroes. Champions for sure, and people we can look up to and for small children to emulate.
ReplyDeleteThe thing is that the Evil Orange's philosophy is to make a lot of noise about success, while shirking responsibility and failing at everything. Be like Harry.
ReplyDeleteHarry is the supreme two-footed striker.
ReplyDeleteHis timing & spacial awareness on the field are astonishing.
Champion or hero ? River has a point. Harry does have a heroic character.
* Work hard in silence, * is sound advice. For anyone. In any endeavour.
He trained after the lads went home. Lonely. It could all have ended in failure.
The young may know where they're going. But they can't predict the future.
James Aldridge spoke of the dirty little tricks of history in his great generational
novel, MY BROTHER TOM.
We hang on the edge of calamity. The young need role models.
JAMES ALDRIDGE : THE GREATEST POST-WAR NOVELIST YOU'VE
DeleteNEVER HEARD OF. YouTube.
A Socialist History o-line talk with Helen Mercer.
Aldridge was too pro-Soviet for my liking.
James Aldridge was too pro-Soviet for my liking.
DeleteHe accepted the Lenin Peace Prize in 1972-73.
But his politics never entered his stories in any doctrinaire way.
I read up about him. He makes a shit load of money, my god. He's also a young family man with four children already. I hope he is a good man, we need more good people in this world.
ReplyDeleteA little-known fact about celebrities and sunglasses -- they often wear them on red carpets because the barrage of photographers' camera flashes can be so blinding. There really IS a reason for it. :)
ReplyDelete