Walcott was great but let's not build him up for a fall

Filed in archive England on September 11, 2008

I first saw Theo Walcott as a fifteen year old lad playing for Southampton in an under eighteen game at Swindon. I had never heard of him before but became aware that the great Cyril Regis was in attendance in the capacity of being his agent.

I had been around youth football for a while but I had never encountered a fifteen year old with a high profile agent before. It was clear that the lad must be something special.

He played well in the game and his pace and trickery led one of the Swindon youngsters to get sent off for something of an agricultural tackle in attempting to stop him.

From there on in Walcott's career has been pretty much public knowledge. It looked as though he would go all the way until Sven Goran Eriksson's misguided decision to take him to the 2006 World Cup.

The whole experience and the fact that he wasn't used despite any other strikers being fit seemed to set him back a long way. Since then he has been carefully nurtured by Arsene Wenger at Arsenal and has gradually forced his way into the first team reckoning at the Emirates.

His hat-trick for England in Croatia was stunning. He still has a long and very bright future ahead of him, but I sincerely hope that the media allow him to progress at his own pace and don't build him up into a world beater on the strength of one performance.