After full-time he is always last out of the dressing room, but a proud little fan club won’t mind. Waiting in the players’ lounge will be Don and Lynn, his parents; Ashley and Hollie, his brother and sister; Ryan, Hollie’s husband; and Melanie, Theo’s girlfriend. Completing the group there’s always Adam Bell, “Belly”, his best mate and, until June , classmate at The Downs School, Compton, near Newbury.
Somebody, probably his father, will have gone to the bar: “Well done, Theo, here’s your lemonade.”
Whether this scene is played out at St Mary’s stadium, where Southampton host Ipswich on Saturday, or Goodison Park, where Arsenal meet Everton, those closest to Walcott are certain that neither it, nor he, will change.
Since Theo began playing at the relatively late age of 10, Don has driven his son countless miles for the sake of football and at the end of every trip the same words are always spoken: “Thanks, Dad.”
Walcott could be a £12m footballer by tomorrow; he is about to renew a contract with Nike that should see him earn more from endorsements than Wayne Rooney at a similar age; and his good looks are even drawing interest from one of the world’s biggest modelling agencies, Storm. What do you give the boy who’s about to have everything? “Well, his hobbies are listening to music or playing Championship Manager on his PC, and he’s pretty hot on his girlfriend right now,” says Warwick Horton, his agent, and a family friend. “He does have his eye on an Audi A3, but it’s two months before he even gets L-plates. At the moment he gets the bus everywhere.”
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Horton, and the company he represents, Key Sports, have had a busy week. After Walcott’s latest luminous performance, against MK Dons in the FA Cup when he scored one goal and set up two others, a tipping point was reached. Since he was 14, Premiership giants have been pressuring Southampton to sell and the clamour finally became impossible. Arsenal initiated transfer negotiations on Thursday and a deal is “70% done”.
Arsène Wenger has offered to ease Southampton’s loss by loaning them players, but despite saying “it’s not a deal-breaker”, is against letting them retain Walcott until May. The player is also keen to move to Highbury now. There is a wrangle over the fee, which may go as high as £12m. Arsenal already accept that they will have to pay £10m, a world record for a 16-year-old.
Southampton want £15m, the amount Chelsea have offered. They also want more up front, at least £5m, more than the £2m Arsenal initially proposed, with the rest subject to conditions.
Rupert Lowe, the Saints chairman, does not enjoy the warmest relationship with Arsenal’s vice-chairman, David Dein, but Lowe cannot afford to play hardball. Walcott can’t sign as a full professional until his 17th birthday on March 16, so he is still a £90-per-week scholar and could be lost for no more than a “development fee”.
He has played just 22 times for Southampton and scored five goals, but Arsenal will offer him a three-year contract (the maximum he can sign when he turns 17), making him a millionaire at an age when he is still eligible for a children’s saving account. But Chelsea, who wanted him at 11 and offered £2m when he was 15, made it clear they would pay “anything” necessary to lure him to Stamford Bridge.
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“When I’ve tried in the past to discuss how much he could earn from contracts, Theo’s said, ‘I don’t want to know’,” said Horton. “The kid and his parents are just not money- motivated and we want him to make football decisions too.”
Walcott is fixed on Arsenal. His reasoning suggests a boy with the right principles: there is the chance to work with Thierry Henry, his role model; Wenger, with his scientific monitoring of players’ physical conditions, will ensure that he is not over-played, and the experience of teenagers such as Cesc Fabregas suggest he will get first-team chances.
Walcott is so prized that Chelsea, Arsenal, Liverpool and Tottenham have been chasing him since 2004 and each of those clubs’ managers has expressed admiration for him. Harry Redknapp, his former manager, said Walcott is “no big head”, and this was demonstrated when he was told Jose Mourinho is a fan. “I don’t understand,” said Walcott. “
Mourinho knows about me?” Noting Shaun Wright-Phillips’s plight, Walcott is not convinced that Chelsea would provide adequate playing opportunities, however. Tottenham and Liverpool hold attractions, especially Liverpool, the team Walcott and his family support, but geography counts against Anfield.
Manchester United are discounted, having only signalled serious interest on Tuesday. They did not follow up on inquiries made by their scouts last January at the Algarve tournament where Walcott, playing as a 15-year-old for England Under-17s, astonished an international community of youth football watchers. Steve Wigley, Southampton’s former manager and youth head, and an important figure in Walcott’s development, saw the tournament. “It made me think, because I looked at what there was in Europe in an age group where most of the players were a year older than Theo, and realised there was nobody better than him. Until then I’d only known he’s the best in the country,” Wigley said.
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The Algarve tournament brought Walcott to the attention of Sven-Göran Eriksson, who had sent his assistant, Tord Grip. “When I came back I told Sven he was a player to watch out for,” Grip said. “He’s special. His touch is excellent and he can beat people with pace and technique. The next thing is to see him in the Premiership. He’s perhaps even ready to play in the under-21s.”
Is it outlandish to suggest that Walcott could make the full England team before 2006 is out? Improbable, but not impossible. Rooney won his first cap at 17 years, 111 days, Walcott’s exact age on July 5 — the date, if everything goes to plan, of England’s World Cup semi- final. Walcott’s numbers are eerily similar to Rooney’s: first-team debut aged 16 years, 143 days (Rooney was 16 years, 297 days), first senior goal, 16 years, 216 days (Rooney: 16 years, 342 days).
Walcott, a slender 5ft 9in, is not as physically developed as Rooney but some think he is the better prospect. They are different. To stand out against grown men a youngster needs something precocious. With Rooney it was game awareness, with Walcott pace. At school he ran 11.5sec for 100m and he’s got much quicker since then. “He’s a thoroughbred athlete,” added Wigley.
Walcott’s fluidity in flight has seen him compared to Henry. He has the same strengths: flair, cool finishing, running with the ball, and even weakness — heading. Wenger recognises the likeness. He believes Walcott’s movement, particularly a tendency to draw wide before darting inside, is uncannily Henry-esque.
The Walcotts have given a lot of love to their son. Don, related to the great West Indian cricketer Sir Clyde Walcott, used to arrange shifts at the gas company that employed him around his son’s training schedule.
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“He’s got a lovely family round him. He’s unassuming. Whenever I had to teach him something, he’d say, ‘Yes’. You were never treading on eggshells,” said Wigley. “Though every club in the country wanted him, he didn’t want to be treated differently.”
Walcott’s life may never be the same after this week but, for now, we can enjoy his Roy of the Rovers existence, how with AFC Newbury under-11s he struck a shot so hard it broke the finger of a parent keeping goal, how pupils at School text him after games, how at Southampton his duties still involve cleaning the boots of a player, Kenwyne Jones, he has already outstripped.
His fellow Saints scholars call him Tiger, after Tiger Woods: similar looks, same initials. The comparisons may or may not continue in years to come, but football, like golf, has found a natural.