Theo Walcott can still picture the paparazzi. Photographers parking up and spending the whole night outside his family home in the tiny Berkshire village of Compton.
Hounding him because he was the 16-year-old wonderkid signed by Arsenal from Southampton for £12million, then the 17-year-old called up to Sven-Goran Eriksson’s England squad for the 2006 World Cup before he had played a game for the Gunners.
Except there was a time when his neighbours had his back. They moved their own cars to trap in one stalking snapper so he could not tail their talented teenager and his then girlfriend, now wife, Mel, as they made their getaway. Compton had only one shop, and one pub, and one school, but among the 1,500 locals, Walcott had an army of allies happy to help.
‘They blocked his car in, but he was threatening to run them over if they didn’t get out of the way for the picture,’ Walcott recalls as he sits down with Daily Mail Sport. ‘Just to get a picture. Putting people in danger. Fully grown men following a boy and a girl. When you voice it out loud now, you think, “Wow. How was that OK?”. It was scary, and it was daily.’
It is at this stage that the affable Walcott turns and points to our photographer, Kevin Quigley, as this now 37-year-old former England footballer smiles and says: ‘You do look familiar, actually.’
Walcott was quick as a player, and still is as a person, but he is also in the middle of making a serious point. At the time of the 2006 squad unveiling, Walcott was taking the theory section of his driving test, and only learned of his call-up after switching his mobile on to phone his old man.
Theo Walcott had to deal with paparazzi from a very early age after bursting onto the scene at Southampton
Walcott signed for Arsenal as a 16-year-old back in 2006 for £12million
Walcott and his future wife Melanie Slade after England flew home from the 2006 World Cup, for which he was selected before he had even played for Arsenal
‘It was too much, too soon for me,’ Walcott concedes now. ‘You’ve just turned 17. You’ve just gone to Arsenal from Southampton in the Championship. You haven’t yet played in the Premier League. When you’re older and you’re an adult and you’ve got more responsibilities and you have your own children, I do look at it now and think, “Where was the protection side of it?”.
‘For me, no, I shouldn’t have gone. Big Sol Campbell and Ashley Cole looked after me. I saw them both recently and thanked them because they didn’t realise what they did for me at the time.’
Walcott did not even get to play for England at the 2006 World Cup, with Eriksson lacking the conviction to back his original gamble, so there was no big reward for what this teenager went through after being named. ‘It was very different then,’ Walcott sums up. ‘I had to deal with the paparazzi side. Now, they have the social media side which you can’t get away from, this thing that’s in the palm of your hands every single minute.’
It is why Walcott is rather pleased Thomas Tuchel did not spring his own surprise by taking, say, Max Dowman, the 16-year-old from Arsenal, to the 2026 World Cup. Instead, England’s youngest representatives are both 21, in Nico O’Reilly and Kobbie Mainoo.
‘I am glad,’ Walcott says of starlets like Dowman. ‘The difference is these guys have experienced the Premier League. I hadn’t. So if they did go, you might think, “OK, you can probably handle it”, and then learn from those experiences going for the next World Cup.
‘I actually saw Max Dowman’s dad in Lisbon when Arsenal played Sporting. He was like, “No, we don’t need it now”. I was like, “Yeah, you don’t”. The spotlight is on them anyway. I had the paparazzi, people visually in front of you with cameras, following you everywhere. The difference now is social media – you can’t get away from it.’
Indeed, your neighbours cannot use their cars to stop the social stalking, and for this 2026 squad announcement, the wildcard targeted online more than most was a 36-year-old Jordan Henderson. Walcott was in the same group as Henderson for Euro 2012 under Roy Hodgson, so he can provide a particular insight into how the midfielder is, and why he was selected by Tuchel.
‘I was with Thomas Tuchel when he did his squad announcement at Wembley,’ Walcott says. ‘Coming away from that, I trust him, from the conversations I had with him.’ Specifically on Henderson in 2012, Walcott continues: ‘He was an absolute pain in the backside – in a good way. If you weren’t on it, he would let you know. Even if it wasn’t a game, this is the way he performed. He performed off the field at a level, which he expected everyone else to also be at.
Walcott fears for current players in an age of social media, where fan opinion is available wherever they turn
He is glad that Arsenal’s Max Dowman, 16, was not picked for this tournament
Walcott did not even get to play for England at the 2006 World Cup, with Eriksson lacking the conviction to back his original gamble
‘It’s so key for those guys to be in those good habits. He’s not intimidated by anyone. He’s such an established professional. Everyone has so much respect for him. He will get the best out of everyone because he has that respect.
‘The fact that Harry Maguire is not in it, that was a tricky one, I didn’t expect that. You can’t please everyone. But I like the fact he’s got someone like Henderson in there because it’s all about good habits day to day, things you wouldn’t see, the way you present yourself or communicate to people or prepare for a game or how you’re in a meeting before everyone else. All these small things matter in tournament football.’
Unusually, we are interviewing Walcott while sitting on the side of an Amazon delivery van. It is to mark Prime Day between June 23 and 26.
What was the last item he ordered himself? ‘Dog treats,’ Walcott says. ‘We have a guide dog so he’s going through so many treats for the training. I will tell you one thing: we always make cakes for each other on our birthdays, my family. My wife, Mel, made me an Amazon box for mine. I’ll find the picture for you. So yeah, you could say I order a lot off Amazon.’
He was used to delivering as a winger, though our talk turns to 2010, when he missed out on representing England at that World Cup. Walcott was that edition’s controversial exclusion. Even Lionel Messi said in an interview at the time that he did not understand it. Manager Fabio Capello later admitted he made a mistake, and this time, Tuchel has excluded Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Maguire and more.
Walcott was that edition’s controversial exclusion. Even Lionel Messi said in an interview at the time that he did not understand it. Manager Fabio Capello later admitted he made a mistake, and this time, Tuchel has excluded Cole Palmer, Phil Foden, Maguire and more.
‘I was on the front of FIFA that year and Cole Palmer was in the Nike advert,’ Walcott says. ‘It was what it was. At the time, I was thinking, “Right, OK, it’s disappointing, of course, but there’s no point dwelling on it because you can’t change anything”. I had a really good year, the following year.
‘I remember Fabio saying he should have taken me. Yeah, you should have! But managers have to make decisions in the moment. It’s not an easy job. You can’t please everyone. I wanted them to do well. It’s important for the players to get behind the team. There might be some who think differently, but I always wanted England to perform and to play well and to win. I’d always want to support them.’
Prime Video UEFA Champions League pundit Theo Walcott makes some speedy Amazon Prime Day deliveries, with hundreds of thousands of deals available for Prime members this week.
