England striker Callum Wilson on non-league days and what he has learned from Harry Kane

Bournemouth frontman waiting patiently for his chance to lead England's line

Callum Wilson was once a long way from becoming an England international. A youth product of hometown club Coventry City, he spent four formative months on loan at Kettering Town, then of the Conference. “You could smell burgers and chips when you’re running up and down the line, 1,000 in non-League watching,” he remembers.

“For me it was about getting experienced and getting minutes under my belt. It toughened me up, playing men’s football, getting a bollocking off the managers. When I was in the Conference you have people’s livelihoods depending on results. Win bonuses to them make such a difference, so if you’re making as mistake you’re getting told about it.”

But even then, as a teenager learning his game in a dressing room of grizzled professionals, he quietly believed that he would eventually represent his country. “I said I will play for England one day,” he insists. “I never actually told any of the players. It’s a bit disrespectful when a lot of them players were a bit older and never got that opportunity.

“They would think: ‘Young little whippersnapper coming in, saying he’s going to play for England, get out of here’. For me, I basically told family, friends. They all said yes, go for it. Some games you would be playing terrible and I’d think: ‘No, it’s never going to happen’. But you have to keep that belief there, and here I am.”

It was this self-confidence which allowed Wilson to rise up the divisions, transitioning between them with ease, until the present day, St George’s Park and a fourth successive England call-up. “That was always the aim, to play for the national team, to play in the Premier League,” he says. “When I got there, I felt I had been there before because in my head I had been there.”

But Wilson is determined that this pinnacle will not be his peak. He wants to establish himself as a regular in Gareth Southgate’s squads and perhaps even a regular in his starting line-ups. One thing is for certain: the Bournemouth striker will need conviction in his own abilities and more of the same self-belief in order to dislodge Harry Kane.

Wilson, Kane and Chelsea youngster Tammy Abraham are all taking part in this England camp. They are all more traditional centre-forwards than the likes of Raheem Sterling, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford. While Southgate reserves two places in his starting line-up for those ‘wide forwards’, he tends to play with just one central striker.

It is currently Kane’s place to lose, but Wilson has matched his Tottenham counterpart for goals in the opening weeks of the new Premier League season, with five in eight games. “Those performances speak for themselves,” he says of his club form. “They will get you into the squad, that’s all I can do to get here. When I get here, train well, wait for my opportunity, be patient.

“Harry is a great player. I’m not saying I want to kick him out of the team, but with injuries, things that happen along the way, you have to be ready to grasp the opportunity. Whether it is one minute, 20 minutes, the opening whistle. It’s not just thinking ‘Harry is going to play’. Anything could happen and I have to be ready to come on and make a difference. I am fully focused.”

But Wilson is also aware that if he and Kane are Southgate’s strikers next summer, he will most likely be the understudy. That gives him an opportunity to observe and take inspiration, something he has already done during their camps together. “In training you watch how clinical he is, in the finishing sessions, training with him, doing those sessions. There is no laughing and joking, just pure concentration,” he says.

“Sometimes in club football, you’ll be doing a finishing session but having a bit of banter with the lads, a competition, laughing and joking, people missing, but in a game that is not what happens, you have to be focused. Harry is in that frame of mind, and I have taken that into my own training back at Bournemouth.

“I like to think I can make an impact,” he adds, accepting the likelihood that his role, for now, is one from the bench. “In cup games, I tend to come on for Bournemouth as a sub, and you get quite a few goals from that.” And given his journey from the smell of burgers and chips in Kettering to a possible international tournament this summer, Wilson knows one thing well. “Things change in football so quick that you have to be ready to take an opportunity when it comes.”