Theo Walcott

Glad About The Boy

Theo, you’re the youngest ever player to score a hat-trick for England. Describe just how brilliant that must feel...

Yeah, to score a hat-trick was amazing, but I just wanted to help the team win really. We knew what a big match it was against Croatia – a team who would be fighting with us at the top of the group – so it was good to win.

Very modest. You going to start banging in hat-tricks every week from now on?

Ha ha. Of course I would like more goals, but the big thing is getting to the World Cup – and with four wins out of four we’ve put ourselves in a great position.

Things have changed quite a bit since two years ago, eh? How did it feel going to the World Cup with everyone saying you didn’t deserve your place in the team?

I didn’t expect the call-up. I was only just taking my driving test at the time! Everyone always says, ‘He shouldn’t have been there, blah blah blah,’ but it doesn’t bother me. I didn’t pick the team, so don’t judge me. It’s not my fault. The England call-up didn’t really help my development, because everyone was expecting something straight away. It was a good experience in the end, but at the time, I was like, ‘Whoa!’

Is it true that you and your family had to stay at a different hotel from the rest of the squad because you weren’t able to afford the same hotel as the other players?

It is. We didn’t have the funds to stay there, and anyway the prices were ridiculous. To be honest it was nice to be out of the way. The World Cup was an experience for my family as well as me and [girlfriend]Mel.

Have the other players changed their attitude towards you since then?

Yeah, whereas before I hadn’t played in the Premier League, some players were probably thinking, ‘What’s he doing here? He doesn’t deserve to be here.’ Now I've been doing well, the players have made me feel more welcome and have started to trust me on the ball, which is nice. I feel more part of the squad.

You seem ridiculously down to earth, but be honest, have you ever been starstruck by anybody in the England squad?

Yeah, Michael Owen. I had a photo of him and me taken I was 11. When I showed it to Michael I was 17 – six years later. He couldn’t believe it. The whole thing was so weird.

Rio Ferdinand recently said the whole footballer’s WAG thing was like a ‘circus’. What do you make of that?

I hate that term WAG, but he was right – the media went crazy for them. I was just a little 16-year-old running around on the pitch like a mad person, trying to impress. I didn’t take any notice of anything else. You can’t. People might say something you don’t want to hear or something really good that might go to your head and then your football goes downhill.

But you’ve since appeared in Hello! with your girlfriend Mel. Explain yourself sir...

That was so weird. We look fake! It’s the airbrushing. Actually we had some other ones done of us recently, no airbrushing… except that Mel’s ear was sticking out in one of them so she asked to have it covered up with some hair. Girls are weird, aren’t they?

We haven’t heard a whiff of scandal about you. How come you’re not drunkenly falling out of nightclubs like the other players?

Everyone is different, but the stuff you see some footballers doing – cheating on their girlfriends and stuff – I just think, ‘Why?’ Why have a girlfriend or a wife and kids if you’re going to cheat?

Fair enough, but you must at least have a few lager tops after a match...

No, I don’t drink at all. I never have done. Back at school people would take the mick out of me for not drinking at parties and stuff, but that didn’t bother me. It’s only a short career and the way you are off the pitch makes a big difference. When you’ve finished your career you can have a drink – though obviously not become an alcoholic or anything like that!

Your best mate is Jake Thomson at Reading. What mischief do you get up to?

We still go into Reading and get haircuts like we used to. We’ve been going to the same place for eight years. It’s a black hairdressers, and I remember we took Gareth Bale with us once. They asked him if he wanted a haircut, he was like, ‘Naaa,’ which was really funny. Jake and I like to make a day of it. We go to Nando’s and then have a cinema day – watch two films back-to-back, really close to the screen until our eyes are funny.

We read that one of the most important things in your life is a dog called Sanchez...

Yeah, Sanchez is a pug crossed with a shih-tzu and he’s always dominating the other dogs. We’ve had the dog whisperer round and he says Sanchez has got height issues, that’s why he has to bark at everyone. One of the other dogs had his bollocks cut off the other day. Bless him, he’s got one of those lampshades on his head.

What car do you drive? Please tell us it’s not a Robbie Savage-style pink Lamborghini...

No, it’s a VW Golf. I love that car. It’s small and zippy. It reminds me of myself. Plus it’s the R32 model, which is also my first squad number, although that’s changed now. Of course, you now wear Thierry Henry’s old number 14 shirt – probably the greatest Arsenal player of all time. No pressure then? It’s just a number in the end. It’s just a number on the back of a shirt, that’s what I think anyway.

What did you think of Christiano Ronaldo’s slavery comments? Can anyone really be a slave on over a £100k a week?

That’s not bad is it, being a slave on that much a year? Anyone would do that, I can guarantee.

You’re still only 19. Where do you see yourself in five years time, when you’ll still be four or five years off your peak?

In five years time I want to be playing regularly for Arsenal and England, scoring 20 goals a season. That is a lot, but you have to set your sights high. I want to win the Premier League, the Champions League and the FA Cup. That’s the main thing, medals. People go on about money and contracts, but for me it’s always going to be about the football.