Gareth Bale went on to become one of the best players on the planet when he left Tottenham, but what happened to Baby Bale, Kenny McEvoy?

“When I’m walking down the corridor and meet Gareth, the two of us sometimes stop, look at each other and break out laughing.”

While Gareth Bale was making a name for himself in the Tottenham Hotspur first-team, Kenny McEvoy was making a splash in the club’s development side, wearing the same number, making use of similar explosive pace.

Then Spurs boss, Andre Villas-Boas had a nickname for him. “Mini-Bale”.

But whereas Bale went on to hit even bigger heights with Real Madrid, McEvoy was left frustrated at Spurs. Neither are in football anymore. But their journeys out of the game could not be more different. So, here’s everything you need to know about what happened to the former heir apparent to Spurs’ iconic Welshman.

Kenny McEvoy and Gareth Bale: A familiar face

Kenny McEvoy’s face regularly makes appearances across social media, owing to its familiarity to Gareth Bale.

Posts rack up millions of views as many guffaw that Bale and ‘Baby Bale’ are not the same man. Joining Tottenham Hotspur in 2010 from Villa FC in his native Waterford in Ireland, though, McEvoy was determined to forge his own path.

Quick and direct with an eye for goal, he quickly became a promising prospect within the Spurs academy. He was progressing fast. “I have one ambition in life and that’s to make it as a professional footballer.”

But, sadly for him, his main claim to fame in a Tottenham Hotspur shirt will always be just how much he looked like one of their greatest-ever players.

He never made a senior appearance for Spurs.

The closest he got to any action was a place on the substitutes’ bench in the Europa League.

It became clear it just wasn’t going to happen for him.

Stepping out of Gareth Bale’s shadow

McEvoy had spent time out on loan, playing at Peterborough United, Colchester United, Stevenage and York City, but he never was able to make the breakthrough into the Tottenham Hotspur first-team.

He left the club in January 2016 when they agreed to release him. “In my own head I made the decision five months ago that I wanted to go elsewhere to start my career as a first-team player, as I did not see it happening at Tottenham no matter how much effort I gave it,” he wrote at the time.

After growing frustrated, it was a relief to finally be free, as he joined York on a permanent deal. “It’s the real world and I am looking forward to seeing what I’m capable of in men’s football.”

But… it didn’t really go to plan. McEvoy was released at the end of the 2015/16 season as York were relegated from the Football League.

The winger moved further down the footballing pyramid for a spell with South Normanton Athletic in the East Midlands Counties League, ahead of a homecoming with Waterford in 2017.

Things went well as McEvoy helped push the club to the top of the division. But, after just six months, he left, having made a big decision about his footballing future.

Kenny McEvoy stepped away from the professional game

Waterford confirmed that McEvoy was leaving the club by mutual consent as he wanted to return to England and commit himself to a new full-time job to support his family.

“I was given an opportunity I couldn’t pass up on which means my family could settle for the first time in four years.”

It marked a quiet end to his professional footballing career and now, nearly a decade on, he plies his trade in recruitment and talent acquisition. He joined Ford & Stanley in September 2025 as part of their Talentwise division where he’s a Managing Consultant.

As a teenager, he was clear that all he wanted to be was a professional footballer. In the years since, he chose to put his young family first and embrace stability. While the internet remembers, and will likely continue remembering him as ‘Baby Bale’, the man himself has long since moved on.