The Strange Case of Harry Kane’s Statue

Somewhere, hidden from view, it has been kept in storage for the past five years. But, finally, there appears to be some movement in The Strange Case of Harry Kane’s Statue.

The photographs have created all sorts of discussion since the Big Issue newspaper made the big reveal – under the headline: “Waste of money or fitting tribute?” – to show the immortalised Kane sitting on a bench with a football on his knee.

Not everyone has been convinced by the likeness and, without wishing to sound cruel, perhaps it is easy to understand why the pictures have gone viral when the journalist who got the exclusive says: “It’s a statue that looks like chocolate.”

As for Kane himself, he has yet to comment on whether he is happy or not with the likeness. His representatives had previously said they were “really excited” about the project, adding that “the location of the statue is really important to us”.

So far, however, it has become an embarrassment for those at Waltham Forest Council, which commissioned the statue in 2019 to commemorate Kane’s links to the area.

Plans to place the statue on Chingford’s overground railway station had to be abandoned because of a risk-assessment study carried out by Transport for London.

Concerns were raised that the statue might be targeted by fans of rival teams on the basis that Chingford also has a sizeable number of West Ham and Arsenal followers.

However, the main reason Transport for London objected to the statue going up inside the station was a safety report that claimed that it could impact the train drivers’ line of sight and cause a possible accident.

One suggestion was that the statue should be put up in an alternative location close to the station. Another possible location was Ridgeway Park, where as a schoolboy Kane scored his first competitive goals for Ridgeway Rovers junior team. But that did not get anywhere, either.

Instead, the statue has been left to gather dust and its design would have remained a secret had it not been for the work of journalist Greg Barradale, writing for Big Issue, the street newspaper that raises money for homeless initiatives.

“Like everyone else who saw the story about a hidden statue of Harry Kane, I had one question: how bad can it be?” says Barradale. “A councillor denied there were any available pictures at the time, so I thought I’d test that and fired off a Freedom of Information request.

“Increasingly, Freedom of Information requests aren’t uncovering the information they should, with the government tending to be more secretive, but this one came back with exactly what football fans and taxpayers wanted to see: the statue.”

Opinions are divided. Social media is rarely kind in these moments and a quick browse through X, formerly known as Twitter, reveals, as one example, the football media company Copa 90 describing it as “the stuff of nightmares”.

The project cost, which came from a fund allocated to “local initiatives, projects or improvements 22 wards share. Harry Kane probably earns that in a minute says. But maybe the story has struck an off-note. Of course, there’s how the statue looks, but there’s a wider feeling. Councils across the UK are going bust, residents face council tax hikes and services are being cut to the bone.

Over a quarter of all UK children are in poverty. People know every penny counts and £7,200 begins to look a lot different in that context. So it’s not hard to see why many are questioning thousands of pounds for a statue that’s in storage.

The council are desperately trying to find an appropriate site in a town that is also notable for being where David Beckham once lived and the Kray twins, from London’s 1960s gangland scene, are buried.

The Strange Case of Harry Kane’s Statue continues………