WHEN Harry Kane surpasses Jimmy Greaves as Tottenham’s all-time leading goalscorer, the England captain will complete a lifelong quest.
Kane’s status as ‘one of our own’ is no idle terrace boast by Spurs supporters - his father Pat is a lifelong fan who ensured his son grew up knowing all about the legend of Greaves.
Danny Greaves, son of Jimmy and a former Southend United centre-forward, has struck up a friendship with Pat and knows exactly how much breaking his father’s record will mean to the Kane family.
Wednesday’s double against Crystal Palace leaves Kane just two goals behind Greaves’ record of 266 Spurs goals, ahead of Saturday’s FA Cup third-round clash with Portsmouth.
It is a record which many, including the families of both strikers, believed would never be broken.
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Danny said: “Harry’s dad Pat is a big Spurs fan, and of Dad. So Harry was brought up being told ‘if you can be as good as Jimmy Greaves…’
“Harry know his history. He was always well aware who Dad was, what he achieved and what he meant to the club.
“Pat recently messaged me and said they never thought Harry would get anywhere near Dad’s record and here he is on the cusp of getting past it.
“There’s a tinge of sadness that this record will be broken but I feel that, in the eyes of many supporters, Dad will always be the king of White Hart Lane.
“We never thought anyone in this era would stay at the club long enough to beat Dad’s record, so good luck to Harry. We, as a family, appreciate him as a fantastic footballer and a great lad.
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“He’ll be Tottenham and England’s greatest goalscorer - he’s just got to be careful he doesn’t finish his career without winning a trophy because, for such a great player, that would be a tragedy.”
Jimmy Greaves died 16 months ago at 81, six years after he’d suffered a devastating stroke, which left him in a wheelchair and with limited speech.
But he and Kane met at Tottenham’s training ground, along with Danny and Spurs chairman Daniel Levy, in 2017.
Danny said: “Harry spent 20 minutes chatting with Dad and it was lovely - they had such genuine admiration for each other. Dad couldn’t communicate well but he knew exactly what was going on and he enjoyed meeting Harry.”
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He’ll be Tottenham and England’s greatest goalscorer - he’s just got to be careful he doesn’t finish his career without winning a trophy because, for such a great player, that would be a tragedy.
Danny Greaves on Harry Kane
While Kane could become Tottenham’s leading scorer today, he is unlikely to beat Greaves’ all-time record of 357 English top-flight goals. Kane, with 198, is 32nd on that list.
The fixation with Alan Shearer’s Premier League record of 260 goals airbrushes the likes of Greaves and Dixie Dean out of history - and Danny admits that is a frustration.
“Will that record ever be beaten? Probably not,” says Danny, “but it’s a real shame they don’t put that record up, like Alan Shearer’s. Shearer was a fantastic player but still way behind Dad.”
Danny, 59, was only seven when his father left Spurs for West Ham in 1970 but he has ‘vague, happy memories’ of watching his old man play at the Lane, along with his younger brother Andy.
“We sat on wooden benches at the front, almost touching the pitch,” said Danny.
“Then we’d go into the dressing-room, where the physio gave us the old bottles of Lucozade. Dad got the hump on the way home because we were hyperactive.
“We’d have a kickabout in the car park and Big Pat Jennings would come out and give us a cuddle.
“But the memory that had the most impact as a teenager was when Spurs signed Ossie Ardiles and Ricky Villa and they had a match with some ex-players and celebrities at the training ground in Cheshunt and Dad was going to play.
“We got out in the car park and there was a sea of people. We got separated and I could hear my Dad shouting to security ‘get my boys’ as he got carried off by this wave of people.
“There were these two great Argentinian World Cup winners there but the only person they all wanted to see was Dad. That was the first time I realised ‘hold on, he must have been something’.”
Danny is co-manager of Isthmian League club Heybridge Swifts and I met him after a coaching session with the Under-19 team at another Essex club Billericay Town.
He also coaches at the Jimmy Greaves Academy in nearby Basildon, where aspiring strikers get advice passed down from the great man himself.
Danny said: “The only advice Dad ever gave me as a goalscorer was that it didn’t have to break the net, it only had to cross the line.
“People get in front of goal, they tighten up, snatch at it, try to break the net. So pass the ball into the goal. I still pass that on to strikers now.”
He is too kind to suggest Kane might have benefitted from such advice in Qatar last month.
But what about the relative attributes of Tottenham’s two greatest strikers?
Danny says: “I don’t think Harry can pick the ball up from halfway, beat four or five players and score, which is what made people get off their seats watching Dad, but then I don’t think Dad scored anywhere near as many goals as Harry aerially.
“Imagine them as a front two, though, they’d have been phenomenal, eh?”