There’s something ineffably endearing about Harry Kane (though I am sure plenty of Bundesliga defenders would disagree), a sort of old-fashioned Englishness that was apparent in Captain Mainwaring. But unlike Mainwaring, he clearly gets on well with Germans. Even more important, he combines an apparent guilelessness with a canny understanding of how to do his job with distinction, which has made him the second most famous old boy of Chingford Foundation School after David Beckham.

He has transformed centre forward play, distributing the ball from midfield with breathtaking ability 

He has transformed centre forward play, distributing the ball from midfield with breathtaking ability 

Far be it from me to quarrel with James Graham, heavily garlanded chronicler of more or less everything, but his wildly overpraised play Dear England about Gareth Southgate contains a shamefully snooty, not to say vicious, portrait of Kane as someone who just mouths sporting clichés. What rubbish. Kane,........

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