Ballon d'Or winner Harry Kane's mixed fortunes against Doncaster Rovers

Harry Kane has become the first English player to win the Ballon d'Or since Michael Owen in 2001 after being crowned the world's best player at a ceremony in London.

The 33-year-old Bayern Munich striker is the fifth Englishman to win in total, with Stanley Matthews (1956), Bobby Charlton (1966) and Kevin Keegan (1978 and 1979) the others.

Believe it or not, the England skipper played two matches against Doncaster Rovers at the beginning of his career - with very mixed fortunes.

Kane scored 61 goals in 51 club matches last season, the most a Bayern Munich player has ever struck in one campaign.

Including England matches, it was 73 goals - plus eight assists - in 65 matches.

Only one player at a club in Europe's top five leagues has ever scored more goals in a season.

It is all a far cry from 2012 when a young Kane took part in two matches against Rovers.

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The first was in March of that year when he was on loan from Premier League giants Tottehham Hotspur to fellow London club Millwall.

At the time, Rovers were in the Championship, but deep in relegation trouble under then boss Dean Saunders.

And things didn’t get any better as Millwall romped to a 3-0 win at the Keepmoat.

The Lions were already 1-0 up when Kane latched onto the ball from distance and unleashed a speculative shot which smashed past keeper Carl Ikeme and into the back of the Rovers net.

You can watch the goal here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKH5LgLOj44

But it was a different story for the fledgling Kane when he next came up against Rovers a few months later.

By that time, he was on loan at Norwich City - and Rovers were paired up against the Canaries in the third round of the Capital One Cup at Carrow Road in September 2012.

While Rovers slipped to a 1-0 defeat, Kane will remember the game for a painful injury which put him out of action for several months.

Shortly after half-time Kane went down in the Rovers box and was stretchered off.

It was later revealed he had suffered a fractured fifth metatarsal, just three games into his season-long loan spell at Norwich.

The injury sidelined the then 19-year-old for about two months, essentially ending his impactful stint at Carrow Road as he was later recalled by Tottenham.

Fast forward to 2026 and Kane is now one of the world’s biggest and best known footballers.

The Bayern Munich striker has scored over 500 career goals for club and country, Tottenham’s all time top goalscorer, England’s all-time top goalscorer, the highest-scoring English player in the Champions League andthe Premier League’s second all-time highest goal scorer.

He won the Golden Boot at the 2018 World Cup and scored six goals at last summer’s World Cup.