Roo-Mania

I have a confession to make. I love Wayne Rooney. Not when he’s playing for Manchester United obviously. Then, I reserve the right to abuse him for the full ninety-seven minutes (on average) per game for the entire season. Including European matches where I know I’m meant to cheer on the plucky English team against the wily continental teams with their evil cheating diving foreigners but let’s face it our teams have as many of them as theirs. But when he’s playing for England I love him. (I should explain to any non-football fans that in the context of the beautiful game, it’s perfectly acceptable for a man in his forties to declare their love for a fit twenty-four year old and for that statement not to contain even a whiff of homosexuality. Just thought I should clear that up).

Yes he’s a Scouser and if like me you’re not from Liverpool, they’re never easy to love. (Stan Boardman anyone? Emlyn Hughes?) Yes in the past, he’s blown it in massive games but he’s not the only one and in the last year or two he seems to have matured to the point where I wouldn’t even nominate him as the prime candidate to do something stupid in an England shirt. (JT, Stevie G, Rio?) Personally, I’d have made him captain but Fabio knows best.

We all know we can’t win the World Cup without Wayne Rooney. (We probably can’t with him but that’s another blog). Other teams could maybe make do with losing star players. If Argentina lost Messi, it would hurt them but he never plays for them the way he does for Barcelona and Lord help everybody if he does. Cesc Fabregas looks doubtful but with Xavi and Iniesta in the team and Javi Alonso in reserve they’ll cope. Brazil have seven blokes who are currently playing beach football who could be called up tomorrow with no discernible difference in quality. As for England, sure Steven Gerrard can change games, Frank Lampard can chip in with the odd goal or two and even Theo Walcott might do something spectacular. But Rooney is the one they all fear and if he’s fit and raring to go against USA, we’re in with a shout.

Part of Wayne’s appeal (aside from being called Wayne which along with Kevin is the footballers name par excellence) is that he seems to embody a sort of Englishness that we thought had disappeared. I know his name’s Rooney and his roots are Irish and his looks are Irish and he’s married to someone called Colleen but his family sailed over at some point in the last two hundred years and stayed here so now he’s ours. He seems like someone from another era. I can picture him now loading a cannon on an eighteenth century man ‘o’ war or bravely defending a besieged garrison in Africa. As a footballer, it’s easy to imagine him in the nineteen thirties enjoying a kick about in the street with the local kids and then wolfing down a pre-match meal of steak and chips. And at around two in the afternoon lashing a great dollop of Brylcreem onto his hair (what’s left of it), waving goodbye to his landlady, sharing the bus to the ground with the supporters and then gliding effortlessly over a pitch that looks less like a football field and more like The Somme. And after a glorious fifteen year career scoring fifty goals a season and having earned a total of seventeen pounds, eight shillings and sixpence quietly retiring to run a newsagents back in Liverpool.

But this is 2010. And a Premiership footballer will not play on a terrible pitch unless his team reaches a cup final. And he most certainly will never have to run a newsagents again. Unless it’s the largest chain of newsagents in the world and he owns a controlling interest and even then, you can’t see him counting the number of Daily Mail’s he’s sold that day and tying up the rest for collection.

Football’s changed. But Wayne Rooney remains the same. Solid. Sturdy. Unyielding. Like a good dining room table. But with two feet. And better heading ability. God protect him and keep him injury free. Until July 12^th when I’d be happy for him to pick up a knock that keeps him out till January.