Highlights
- Darren Caskey became Tottenham's youngest-ever goalscorer at 19 years old, but his career didn't live up to expectations as he played for multiple clubs.
- Reto Ziegler scored his first and only goal for Spurs at 18 years old before moving to Serie A and having a varied career across Europe.
- Aaron Lennon joined Tottenham at 18 and had a successful 10-year stint with the club, making many appearances and contributing with goals and assists before moving to other teams.
Tottenham has been a breeding ground for some top players in recent years, with the club always looking to promote talented academy talents to the first-team setup.
But which of them got off to flying starts in their Spurs careers? And who holds the title of the club's youngest-ever goalscorer? This is the question we are posing today. From Harry Kane to Gareth Bale, to talents who simply didn't live up to the hype they set themselves with the quick start to their respective Tottenham career in the Premier League, Champions League and beyond, we have you covered on it all.
Throughout this article, we've analyzed and ranked the top ten youngest goalscorers in Tottenham's history from the start of the 1992-1993 campaign to now. This analysis is based on credible sources, backed by comprehensive statistics and figures provided by Transfermarkt, one of the most respected and reliable sources for football transfer data.
| Player | Age |
|---|---|
| Darren Caskey | 19y 43d |
| Reto Ziegler | 18y 351d |
| Aaron Lennon | 18y 336d |
| Rory Allen | 18y 326d |
| Nick Barmby | 18y 248d |
| Harry Kane | 18y 140d |
| Sol Campbell | 18y 78d |
| Gareth Bale | 18y 47d |
| Andy Turner | 17y 165d |
| Alfie Devine | 16y 163d |
10 Darren Caskey (19y 43d)
Joining Tottenham in 1990 as a trainee, the club has high hopes for young Caskey and he was tipped by many in the upper echelons of the club to be the next Glen Hoddle.
Alas, his early goal heroics were about as good as it got for Caskey and he went on to leave Spurs in 1996 before playing for 13 different clubs. A proper journeyman.
Nevertheless, his late winner against Everton in 1990 at just 19 years old is something to tell the grandchildren about and after retiring in 2015, Caskey has enjoyed coaching roles for non-league sides across the country.
9 Reto Ziegler (18y 351d)
Arriving at White Hart Lane from Grasshopper Zurich in 2004 as a teenager, Ziegler looked like the real deal, enjoying a decent first season with Spurs, scoring his only goal against Everton at just 18 years old.
Although, despite his bright start to life in North London, things didn't quite go to plan afterwards with Ziegler eventually making a move to Serie A to join Sampdoria in 2007.
His career from then on stretched far and wide across Europe, with spells in Turkey, France, Russia and Switzerland. Ziegler is now 37 years old and still playing the beautiful game, turning out for FC Sion in the Swiss Challenge League. Go on son.
8 Aaron Lennon (18y 336d)
Joining from Leeds United in 2005 for a cool £1 million big things were expected of Lennon and he managed to get on the scoresheet for his first-ever goal for the club against Birmingham in a 2-0 win.
A 10-year love affair then played out between Lennon and Spurs, where he managed to rack up 365 appearances alongside 30 goals and 77 assists. Decent stats.
Lennon left Tottenham in 2015 and then went on to play for Everton, Kayserispor and Burnley where he unfortunately suffered a relegation in his final season with the club.
One of the players on this list who fans will have fonder memories of, Lennon was an original tricky, pacey winger before an influx of stars entered the fold in the English top flight.
7 Rory Allen (18y 326d)
Rory Allen has one of the most bizarre football stories you'll ever hear, however, it all started for him at Tottenham where he became one the club's youngest-ever goalscorers.
Nevertheless, after 28 appearances Allen was shipped off to Portsmouth for £1 million in 1999, becoming their first-ever million pound signing.
What followed is the bizarre part, after three injury-plagued seasons on the coast, Allen decided to walk away with 8-months remaining on his contract to go watch England in the Ashes.
A summer well spent? You'll have to ask Rory about that one, but we reckon he sank a few pints in the process.
6 Nick Barmby (18y 248d)
Barmby was a key cog for Spurs during the early 90s, making 108 appearances for the club and hitting the back of the net 28 times. His first, coming at just 18 years old, was a sign of things to come.
However, £5.25 million saw him shipped off to Middlesbrough in 1995 and then Everton and their Merseyside rivals Liverpool. An unforgivable sin in the North West of England but one Barmby did with open arms.
Barmby's career lasted up until 2012 after eight years at Hull City when he decided to hang up the boots at the age of 37. A solid showing and a top talent, something his lengthy career highlights.
5 Harry Kane (18y 140d)
Kane burst onto the scene at Tottenham at just 18 years old and is currently the club's fifth youngest-ever goalscorer. What happened after that is anyone's guess, just kidding. Kane went on to become arguably the greatest player to ever wear the famous white shirt in North London after a phenomenal spell that lasted 19 years.
The England captain scored an astonishing 280 goals in 435 appearances in all competitions and is now regarded as one of the all-time Premier League great strikers. But Spurs' disappointing record as far as picking up trophies is concerned led him to leave the club to join Bayern Munich last summer.
Part of us still thinks that he will be back at some point. Gareth Bale made a return before retiring so who's to say that Kane won't do the same thing?
4 Sol Campbell (18y 78d)
Traitor? Judas? These are just some of the nicer names Tottenham fans have for Sol Campbell, however, he was once one of the brightest young talents at the club.
So much so, that he made his debut for the club in 1992 at 18, coming off the bench and scoring against Chelsea, making him Tottenham's fourth youngest-ever goalscorer. Oh, what could have been for young Sol at Spurs, could he have been the missing link to bring more silverware to the club?
Alas, after 300 appearances Campbell decided to switch allegiances to Spurs' North London rivals Arsenal in 2001, a move that was met with utter disgust.
3 Gareth Bale (18y 47d)
Bale managed to score on his second appearance for Spurs after joining from Southampton in 2007, but no one could have predicted the career he was about to have.
The Welshman overcame early critics and naysayers to become one of the best footballers in the world, subsequently earning himself an £86 million move to Real Madrid in 2013. He'll always be loved in North London, something that can't quite be said the same for fans in Madrid, for some odd reason.
Bale retired in the summer of 2023 after a spell in the MLS with LAFC, bringing an end to an illustrious career that saw him win five UEFA Champions League trophies and three La Liga titles. Does this make him the best British footballer of all time? GIVEMESPORT thinks so.
Gareth will likely be on a golf course right now enjoying the sport he actually loves. Wales, golf, Madrid. In that order.
2 Andy Turner (17y 165d)
Turner became the youngest-ever goalscorer in Premier League history when he scored against Everton in 1992 for Tottenham. A title he held until 1997.
Turner's name now sits nicely next to the likes of Michael Owen, Cesc Fabregas and Wayne Rooney in the youngest goalscoring charts the English top flight has to offer. Although, it's fair to say Turner didn't have quite the same career as the names mentioned above and he left Spurs in 1996 for Portsmouth.
The once youngest-ever Premier League netter then sunk further down the English pyramid to play the game he loved and now coaches at an academy in Bangladesh, likely telling his students of his Premier League exploits.
1 Alfie Devine (16y 163d)
Devine intervention. We have arrived at the number one spot and it goes to Mr Alfie Devine who became Tottenham's youngest-ever goalscorer at just 16 years old. Wow.
Whilst most of us in England were sitting our GSCE exams, praying for an easy math equation to come up, Devine was banging them in for one of the top football clubs in the world. Yeah, life isn't always fair, is it?
His goal came in an FA Cup win over Marine in 2021, where he also became Tottenham's youngest-ever player to play in the FA Cup. Whilst this isn't the best of oppositions, it's still a pretty impressive feat from the maestro.
Devine joined Spurs from Wigan for £500,000 in 2020 and was immediately thrust into the first-team fold by then-Tottenham manager Jose Mourinho. A solid managerial reference if he ever needs one.
The youngster is currently enjoying a loan spell at Port Vale and has just been called up to train with Gareth Southgate's England squad ahead of their Euro 2024 qualifiers. We are looking forward to seeing how his career progresses in the coming seasons.