The Tottenham Hotspur striker, Harry Kane finally returned to action for his club in the 1-0 victory at Wolverhampton Wanderers and he had the backing of the fans.
Harry Kane must have been apprehensive when he stepped on to the pitch for his Tottenham return but he probably didn’t expect to the grief to come from the Wolves fans.
The 28-year-old England captain’s relationship with some Spurs fans has been damaged in recent weeks by the ambiguity surrounding his future.
When he walked off that coach at Molineux, traveling up with the squad for the first time since May, he might have expected some of the traveling fans to be stood there waiting for him with some tough words.
Instead, it was the Wolves supporters standing there as the coach pulled up outside the Midlands ground.
When he made his way from the dugout to the edge of pitch, the Wolves fans began their tirade inside the stadium and it awoke something in the traveling Tottenham faithful, who defended their man.
It was a real moment of ‘we can be disappointed in him but don’t you dare’.
The home fans jeered again as he was about to come on, before singing: “Harry Kane, he wants to (swear word) off”.
The Spurs supporters replied in unison that he is still, and will likely always be in many minds, one of their own.
When Kane finally stepped on to the turf, replacing the injured Son Heung-min, the Wolves fans unleashed a torrent of chants, ranging from “There’s only one greedy (swear word)” to “He’ll be a Manc in the morning”. .
The away supporters simply retorted: “Harry Kane, he’s worth more than Wolves.”
While it was a back and forth between the two sets of supporters that showcased exactly why it’s so much fun to have the noisy fans back in stadiums, from the outside it all felt utterly uncomfortable for the man who was the focus of it all.
After the final whistle, he went through his warm-down with Harry Winks, running up and down the Molineux pitch, and even the Wolves fans in the stand he was heading towards still gave him stick as they drifted towards the exits.
Yet those Spurs fans left in the stadium shouted his name and he waved back at them, perhaps acknowledging that while he might want to leave, they have not given up on him.
After the match, even a tweet emerged on his social media account, simply stating: “Brilliant battling win.”