Harry Kane: The Greatest Goalscorer of Our Time? This Summer Could Seal His Legacy!

IT all started on January 22, 2011 at Leyton Orient’s modest Brisbane Road.

Little did we know then that a goalscoring phenomenon had been born.

Harry Kane is one of the greatest goalscorers of any generationCredit: Getty His goalscoring feats began at Leyton Orient 15 years agoCredit: Tgsphoto

That was the day when 17-year-old netted his first senior goal past Sheffield Wednesday keeper Nicky Weaver while on loan at the O’s.

Fast forward to 2026 and last weekend Kane became the first Englishman to reach the glorious milestone of 500 career goals.

It is an incredible achievement and one which marks Kane down as not only the greatest British goalscorer of this generation, but arguably any generation.

A roll call of Kane’s tally makes remarkable reading and includes a record 78 strikes for England.

Added to that are the 280 he scored at Spurs, five at , nine at Millwall, two at Leicester and the current running total of 126 at .

What is even more surprising is that Kane’s eye-catching footballing pedigree — he went to the same Chingford school as — suggests he was always destined for soccer stardom.

In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, as Kane was something of a late developer.

He was released by for being “a bit chubby”, according to Gunners’ academy coach Liam Brady, and turned down by Spurs before joining Watford.

While at the Hornets he played in a match against Spurs, who promptly changed their minds and had the 11-year-old Kane back.

It proved a very wise decision as within a few years Kane was knocking on the first-team door.

A succession of loan moves toughened him up and Kane really started to flourish at Tottenham under .

That’s when the goals began to fly in with amazing regularity.

By the time Kane left for Bayern Munich three years ago, he had become the Premier League’s second-highest goalscorer with 213 strikes.

Spurs’ loss has been Bayern Munich’s gain as Kane has continued to score at an express rate, netting 126 times since his switch to Germany, 89 of which have been in the Bundesliga.

He has 26 in the league this campaign and is on course to break Robert Lewandowski’s all-time Bundesliga record for a season of 41 goals.

Perhaps it was surprising Kane left Spurs for Germany, as the financial rewards appear bigger in Spain’s LaLiga. But you get the impression the 32-year-old is not remotely doing this for the money.

He has been an outstanding ambassador for English football and who knows how many goals Kane will have celebrated by the time he hangs up his boots?

A century for his country is certainly not unrealistic.

In the history of top-level football, only 26 players have scored more than 500 goals for club and country, making Kane something very special.

Those predatory powers don’t seem to be on the wane as Kane is scoring at a faster rate now than he did many years ago and fitness has never been an issue for him.

It will be interesting to look back at his career when he is finished to see whether Kane gets the plaudits his scoring record clearly deserves.

I hope so. As a model professional both on and off the pitch, you will never see Kane on the front or back pages for anything other than footballing reasons.

Records are there to be broken — and I suspect Kane will break a lot more before hanging up his boots.

He turns 33 in July, nine days after this summer’s World Cup finishes, and there appears to be plenty more miles under his bonnet.

and are still knocking them in at 41 and 38 respectively and I can see Kane going on for just as long.

And, who knows, maybe the skinny kid who first scored 15 years ago at Leyton Orient will be lapping the MetLife Stadium on July 19, holding aloft the World Cup trophy?