Harry Kane on the brink of history despite meandering start to career

Just because something happens doesn't mean it was always going to happen. Take Bolton's 1-0 win over Forest Green on Tuesday night, for example.

It's not a result that leaps off the vidiprinter. Bolton are fifth in League One, Forest Green bottom and the Trotters, 1-2 before kick-off, took the lead inside six minutes.

Before the half-hour mark, though, goalscorer Dion Charles was sent off in a case of mistaken identity and the visitors ended up with 62 per cent of possession and 12 shots to Bolton's four.

What, on paper, looks like a regulation home win in fact reveals Bolton's ability to dig in, Forest Green's lack of cutting edge, and the desperate need for facial-recognition technology to aid EFL referees.

Staying in the north-west, Preston host Tottenham in the FA Cup on Saturday evening and Deepdale could be the stage on which Spurs striker Harry Kane becomes the club's leading goalscorer of all time.

Kane equalled Jimmy Greaves's mark of 266 at Fulham on Monday but there was nothing pre-ordained about his record-breaking feats for Tottenham and England.

He wasn't a teenage prodigy like Alan Shearer, Wayne Rooney or Cesc Fabregas - indeed his early career path was a meandering one, with loan spells at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester and only the occasional opportunity in unglamorous fixtures for Spurs.

Kane's first senior goal for Tottenham came against Shamrock Rovers in the Europa League in December 2011 but he had to wait until April 2014 for his first Premier League strike for the club.

Even his breakthrough campaign in 2014-15 was a slow-burner. By the start of November his only goals had come against AEL Limassol, Besiktas, Asteras Tripolis and Championship clubs Nottingham Forest and Brighton.

Kane has always needed time to get into his stride and, famously, it took him until 2018 to score his first Premier League goal in August.

His long apprenticeship at Spurs meant his sudden rise to stardom felt like a fluke initially. One Racing Post colleague was a committed Kane sceptic, confidently dismissing the striker as "a one-season wonder" even after he had reached 150 Premier League goals.

Kane's achievement in drawing level with Greaves has prompted a retrospective exhibition of his greatest hits but it's worth remembering that he is still only 29.

He has packed a lot into eight-and-a-half seasons of top-level football and his phantom move to Manchester City in the summer of 2021 is one of the most intriguing Sliding Doors moments in Premier League history.

If Kane had joined City, where would Erling Haaland have ended up? Playing for Leeds, the city of his birth, and firing them to the title in front of a limpid-eyed Gwyneth Paltrow, perched on a bucket in the Elland Road technical area? Sorry, I got carried away with the Sliding Doors analogy there …

Kane's rise to Premier League and World Cup Golden Boot winner isn't quite as remarkable as Jamie Vardy's ascent from non-league forward to title-winning Leicester legend but there is still an element of journeyman-made-good about his story.

Is it possible that the first chapter of a similar tale is being written at the other end of Seven Sisters Road?

After Arsenal striker Eddie Nketiah's late winner against Manchester United last weekend, Jonathan Wilson wrote in The Guardian that "there has been no sense of inevitability about his emergence" – a phrase that might have been used about Kane's advent in 2014-15.

Perhaps, then, if Nketiah enhances his reputation in Friday's FA Cup tie at Manchester City it might be time for bookmakers to chalk up his career Arsenal goals line at over/under 265.5.

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