Theo Walcott was born in Stanmore and has a partly Jamaican background.  He was educated at The Downs Secondary School and played for AFC Newbury where he scored more than one hundred goals in his only year with them.  He showed such promise that by the time he was 14 he had already agreed sponsorship with Nike.

He signed early to Southampton’s Youth side and not long after he turned 16 he came on as a substitute against Wolverhampton Wanderers, a game which made him the youngest player to ever appear for Southampton’s first team.

He made his first full appearance when they played Leeds United in October 2005, and scored his first goal during the match.  His second goal came just four days later against Millwall and then in his first full game at home the following Saturday against Stoke City.

Walcott, then still a youth, signed a pre-contract agreement which tied him to signing professionally when he turned 17 and went on to establish himself as a regular starter for the first team.

Latterly, he scored the first goal of two claimed by Arsenal during the March 2010 Champions League first leg match against FC Barcelona, and was put up to start the second leg match in which he helped set up team-mate Bendtner.

His first call-up for England as a senior came in May 2006 for the FIFA World Cup and he appeared as a substitute for the B Team against Belarus on 25 May.  When he stepped onto the park on 30 May 2006 in a friendly against Hungary, he became the youngest player to make a full appearance for England at only 17 years and 75 days old