'17 years? Where has that gone?' - past, present and future with Jermain Defoe back in N17

Looking around the new stadium for the first time, our legendary former striker Jermain Defoe was reminded how he experienced similar emotions when he became a Spurs player - 17 years ago...

“17 years?” he said, genuinely staggered. “That’s mad. Where’s that time gone?”

Signed from West Ham on 3 February 2004, introduced to fans at White Hart Lane on 4 February, ‘JD’ scored on his debut in a 4-3 thriller three days later against Portsmouth in the Premier League.

“I remember my first day at Spurs Lodge,” continued Jermain, talking about our former training ground. “Gus Poyet, Jamie Redknapp, Ledley King, all those boys, I was so excited to sign, and when I scored in my first game, that was it. Portsmouth at White Hart Lane. I scored past Shaka Hislop. It just took off from there.”

Just 21 at the time, Jermain would take his tally to 143 over two spells over the next 10 years. He proudly sits sixth in our all-time goalscoring list and could probably reel off all of those goals. “I still watch them all,” he smiles. “I just love scoring goals. That’s never changed.”

Now 38, JD is still scoring goals. He weighed in with seven in 20 games as Glasgow Rangers ended Celtic’s grasp on the Scottish Premier League title, scoring his first Old Firm goal on 2 May, and then the final goal of their unbeaten season against Aberdeen on 15 May. He’s now scored over 300 career goals.

“You know when you are at that age when someone says to you, ‘you’ve another 15 years in the game’ and I just thought, ‘nah, I’ve got forever’...and here we are,” he continued.

“That’s why I say to young players now, ‘you cannot waste one training session’, and tell them to enjoy it. They don’t know how lucky they are. Imagine playing in a stadium like this, in front of 60,000 fans!

“From day one I’ve always looked after myself, concentrated on my craft. That’s the bread and butter, every day, and I’ve put everything into it. I’m always in the gym and away from training, looking after what I eat, stuff like that.

“The natural ability, scoring goals, that will take care of itself, but you have to push yourself every day. That’s the difference, really. You don’t want to look back thinking, ‘I wish I did this, I wish I did that’.”

Jermain was with us for the Villa game at the end of last season and proved a popular studio guest on our N17 Live show. He was joined in the stadium by 10,000 fans that night - our highest attendance since March, 2020, following the easing of COVID-19 restrictions on 17 May - and could only imagine a full stadium...

“I’m blown away,” he said. “It’s my first time here. I’ve driven past a few times and there was the Legends game (against Inter, one of the stadium’s test events in March, 2019) but I couldn’t make it.

“It’s unbelievable. I can just imagine when it’s full, the atmosphere must be incredible. I look forward to that. I’d love to play here one day, just to walk out there would be amazing. What a job the Club has done here.”