Five stars who supported Arsenal growing up including Harry Kane and Wilfried Zaha

Arsenal are one of the most popular teams in the Premier League, with 60,000 people regularly selling out the Emirates every match day. As a result, it is no surprise that many footballers followed the team growing up. Here, Express Sport takes a look at five boyhood Gooners with Harry Kane and Wilfried Zaha among that number.

Harry Kane

At this point, everyone has seen the viral picture of Kane posing in an Arsenal top as a child, and it is regularly used by Gooners to get one over on Tottenham. The England captain has always stressed that he was a Spurs fan during his youth but the photo speaks differently – not that that should bother the Tottenham faithful.

Kane was a member of Arsenal’s academy but was released at the age of eight, something he says was the ‘best thing to ever happen to him’ as it left him with a ‘chip on his shoulder’ for the rest of his career. He has since gone out to score 14 times against the club in the space of 19 games, punishing them for his early rejection.

Wilfried Zaha

Zaha is now widely considered to be a club legend at Crystal Palace but Arsenal had his heart during his youth. The winger has been heavily linked with a move to the Emirates in the past, but it has just never come to fruition.

“Supporting them and having them wanting you at the same time leaves you thinking, ‘This is amazing’,” Zaha conceded during an interview on Rio Ferdinand’s YouTube channel. “But things never worked out so you just have to move on. I was thinking this may happen and my family was saying, ‘Wow, it’s Arsenal’, but yeah it just didn’t work out.”

Antonio Rudiger

The German defender is synonymous with Chelsea, having represented the Blues between 2017 and 2022. However, he supported the Gunners while growing up after being taken in by the quality of two club legends.

“I have been following Arsenal since the days of Henry and Bergkamp,” he said in an interview. The 30-year-old made his Chelsea debut against Arsenal but scored an own goal the next time the teams met.

Fiyako Tomori

In a similar vein to Rudiger, Thierry Henry helped inspire Tomori’s admiration for Arsenal. The former Chelsea defender admits he was more of a general football fan growing up but held a special place for the Gunners due to his love of the legendary Frenchman.

“I think [my first football shirt] was a Thierry Henry Arsenal shirt because I loved Thierry Henry,” the centre-back told the Chelsea website. “My family were Arsenal fans so I was following that at the time. I was just more of a football fan but Henry was my idol.”

Kieran Richardson

Richardson’s appearances for Manchester United largely came while the Red Devils were in direct competition with Arsenal to be considered the best team in England. However, following his retirement he has freely admitted that he was an Gooner during his youth and is looking forward to buying a season ticket next season.

“I watch football so much now – I did not watch it much as a footballer – I did not really care,” he told the Steven Sulley Study. “Now as someone not playing, I enjoy being an Arsenal fan – I am buying a season ticket next season.

“I do not think there was a conflict of interests.I am an Arsenal fan but when you play for a club, you are not thinking about Arsenal. Whichever club you are at, that is the team you are riding for.”