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Although it’s not as well renowned as other academies in football such as those of Barcelona and Manchester United, Tottenham Hotspur’s youth system has still produced some great players over the years, with a number going onto major success in the Premier League and on the international scene.
Under boss Mauricio Pochettino, in particular, Spurs became renowned for a willingness to use young talent – and only time will tell whether the likes of Oliver Skipp, Kyle Walker-Peters and Troy Parrott go on to match the success of some of their predecessors.
Here are Tottenham’s 5 best academy graduates.
#5 Harry Winks
Still just 23 years old, midfielder Harry Winks is one of the best young talents to emerge into the Premier League from any team’s academy in some time. A lifelong Tottenham fan, the England international joined the academy at White Hart Lane at the age of just 6, eventually signing his first professional contract with the club in 2014 as an 18-year-old.
He made his first-team debut a handful of months later, but it wasn’t until the 2016-17 season that he really established himself as a first-team regular under Mauricio Pochettino. Injuries have curtailed Winks to less appearances than he might’ve otherwise managed since, but it’s clear by watching him that Spurs are a far better side with the midfielder involved, and he’s now embedded himself into England’s first team too.
Over his four seasons in the Premier League, Winks has made a total of 79 appearances, and impressively, he’s been able to keep a pass success rating of over 90% throughout that time, earning him comparisons to world greats like Andres Iniesta, Xavi and Luka Modric.
A rarity in English football thanks to his ability to retain possession for his side, perhaps the best thing about the midfielder is that we clearly haven’t seen him reach his prime yet.
#4 Peter Crouch
Unlike the other players on this list, striker Peter Crouch was unable to break into Tottenham’s first team immediately after graduating from their academy. The future England international joined their youth system as a 14-year-old and then signed a professional contract with the club in 1998, but before making any appearances, he was loaned out to various sides before being sold to Queens Park Rangers in 2000.
Crouch took the long route to the top; playing for QPR and Portsmouth in the old First Division before moving to the Premier League with Aston Villa in 2002, but it was at Southampton that he really made an impact.
The 6’7” tall striker scored 16 goals for the Saints in 2004-05, earning him a £7m move to Liverpool where he would break into the England senior squad, scoring a World Cup goal in 2006 against Trinidad and Tobago.
Almost a decade after first leaving the club, Crouch eventually found his way back to Tottenham, signing with them in the summer of 2009 for a fee of £10m. He went onto spend 3 seasons at White Hart Lane, scoring some memorable goals including the one to send them into the Champions League for the first time in May 2010.
The striker eventually moved on from Spurs and joined Stoke City, where he played another 7 seasons in the Premier League, continuing to be a consistent goalscorer.
Crouch finally retired in the summer of 2019, ending his career with an impressive 109 Premier League goals and 22 international strikes for England too.
#3 Ledley King
It’s impossible to talk about Ledley King without wondering how good the central defender could’ve been had it not been for the chronic knee issues that curtailed his time at the top of the game and forced him into early retirement at the age of just 32.
Ridiculously, for a number of seasons, King played for Spurs while barely training due to his knee problems – and was still one of the Premier League’s most consistent defenders.
King joined Tottenham at the age of 15 and worked through their youth system before debuting in the first team as an 18-year-old in May 1999, and interestingly during his early seasons at the club he was often deployed as a midfielder.
He scored what was the Premier League’s fastest goal at the time – after just 10 seconds – in a game against Bradford in 2000, a record that wasn’t broken until 2019.
It was as a central defender however that King became most widely renowned; even with his chronic knee issues, he was still Spurs’ most important defensive player throughout the 2000s, and despite not being able to train properly, was still prized by bosses Martin Jol, Juande Ramos and Harry Redknapp – and captained Tottenham to their most recent major trophy in 2008 when they won the EFL Cup.
King was so highly regarded that then-England boss Fabio Capello even took him to the 2010 World Cup despite knowing that he’d likely only be able to participate in one or two games at the most.
When he retired, the great Thierry Henry marked him out as the best defender he’d ever played against – and incredibly, he ended his career having only been booked 8 times, despite playing 14 seasons in the Premier League for Spurs.
#2 Sol Campbell
Few players are as despised by the fans at Tottenham than Sol Campbell; a sad state of affairs indeed when you consider that he was a graduate of their academy and in terms of trophies won, is by far the most successful Spurs youth product of the Premier League era.
In his prime, the central defender was not only one of the best in his position in England; he was arguably the very best defender in the world.
Campbell signed with Tottenham’s academy at the age of 15 after leaving West Ham, and made his first team debut with the side in December 1992, scoring his first Spurs goal in the process in a loss to Chelsea.
From there he was able to grow as a player and by the mid-1990s, he’d established himself as Tottenham’s most valuable defender and was also a key part of the England senior side, too.
After starring for England in the 1998 World Cup, the defender then captained Tottenham to an EFL Cup victory in the 1998-99 season, and was named in the PFA Team of the Year.
However, he’d begun to become disillusioned with his situation at Spurs, and in the summer of 2001 – after allowing his contract to expire – he made the move across North London to Tottenham’s bitter rivals Arsenal, becoming persona non grata with Spurs fans in the process.
Campbell went onto huge success with Arsenal – winning the Premier League title on two occasions, the FA Cup twice, and playing in the Champions League in 2006 – but remains known as ‘Judas’ by the majority of Tottenham fans, even a decade on from his retirement.
Still, his amazing skill as a defender would make even the most hardened Spurs fan begrudgingly admit his greatness.
#1 Harry Kane
Of all of Tottenham’s academy graduates, none have had the same impact at the club as star striker Harry Kane. It’s almost hard to believe today that after a series of failed loan moves in his early career at the club, it was looking likely at one point that he would never actually make it at the top level at all.
Kane signed with Spurs as an 11-year-old, and although his physical skills had not yet developed, he was marked out in those early days for his tremendous work ethic – something he’s kept with him throughout his subsequent career.
The striker signed his first professional contract in the summer of 2010 as a 17-year-old, and then embarked on a series of largely fruitless loan moves, playing three seasons away from Tottenham at Leyton Orient, Millwall, Norwich and Leicester.
The fact that over those three seasons, Kane only scored 14 goals is now scarcely believable. He returned to Spurs at the start of the 2013-14 season, and was eventually given his chance in the first team by then-manager Tim Sherwood, scoring his first 3 Premier League goals in the process. It was in the next season – under Mauricio Pochettino – that he really burst onto the scene, though.
2014-15 saw Kane score 21 league goals in 34 appearances, establishing himself as Tottenham’s main striker as well as breaking into the England senior squad. Many detractors felt that he would be a “one-season wonder”, but 2015-16 saw him destroy that idea by scoring another 25 Premier League goals.
Since then, Kane has gone on to register more and more goals each season – scoring his 100th Premier League goal in February 2018 in just his 141st appearance, a record beaten only by Alan Shearer’s century in 124 games.
The 2017-18 season saw him score 41 goals in all competitions, and then captain England to their first World Cup semi-final in nearly 2 decades, winning the Golden Boot in the process.
At the time of writing, Kane has scored 181 goals for Tottenham in just 278 appearances, putting him 3rd in the club’s all-time scoring charts behind only Bobby Smith and Jimmy Greaves. And at just 26 years old, he’s got plenty of time to find his way to the top of that list, too. Simply put, Kane is arguably the best Spurs academy product of all time.
