Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (25 page)

Then I let myself down.

I have a disastrous World Cup with England in the summer and I play badly. In the group stages I moan about the fans when they boo us off after a poor performance against Algeria. In the knockout phase we get battered 4–1 by Germany – it doesn’t get any worse than that for an England player. The ankle injury that ends my season in 2010 gives me grief throughout the start of the 2010/11 campaign.

Unsurprisingly, my form takes a dive. I have ’mare after ’mare on the football pitch, I make silly mistakes and I rarely look like scoring. The only league goal I get comes in August against West Ham in a 3–0 win – a penalty. Then it gets worse. In September I’m dropped for the game against
Everton; my ankle puts me on the sidelines shortly afterwards. I get frustrated with myself, my game, my injury, and everything around me. I know I’m stuck in a cycle of bad form but I can’t get out of it. And that’s when I make the biggest mistake of my football career. In October, I release a statement which publicly questions my happiness at Old Trafford.

Am I better off elsewhere?

Everyone makes a fuss. There are discussions inside United to sort out the issue, people outside United chuck their opinions around, but the thing is, nobody really knows what’s going on in my life. None of them understand where I am in my career; they don’t know where my head’s at. The only person who really knows what’s going on in there is me, but even I’m not sure what I want.

Then The Manager has his say.

‘Sometimes you look in a field and you see a cow and you think it’s a better cow than the one you have in your own field. It’s a fact, right? And it never really works that way.’

He’s saying the grass isn’t always greener, and he’s right. Well, I don’t see United as a cow, but the idea is right.
I like what’s in my field. I’m wrong.
United want the same as me: trophies, success, to be the best. For six years, I’ve been lucky enough to win league titles and a Champions League trophy. I’ve been able to work alongside world-class players, not to mention The Manager, the most successful club boss in the modern game. My mind goes into another spin. I feel gutted at what I’ve done.

How stupid are you, Wayne?

What are you doing?

Then comes the moment of clarity.

You love the club, you love the supporters. You respect The Manager and he’s got you trophies and titles. You couldn’t be anywhere better. The club want the same as you: success, to be the best on the planet.

You’d be mad to leave. There’s no better place to play than United. It’s the biggest team in football. Our history is huge; you’re playing with world-class players, and we’re winners, sitting near the top of the table.

That’s when I make another decision, a sensible one this time.

Look, I want to stay.

I sign a new five-year contract with the club, but a strange atmosphere comes around the place. Some of the fans are moody about my announcement. When I run onto the pitch as a sub for the first time in weeks for the game against Wigan on 20 November, a lot of fans cheer me, but some of them boo. There are banners slagging me off. Fair play, I understand their opinions. The thing is, everyone makes mistakes. I just made mine in public, so I try to keep calm.

Get your head down, Wayne. Just get on with the game.

But the game doesn’t come easy. I’m a bit short of match fitness because I’ve been on the sidelines for a few weeks and I don’t start well. As the second half ticks away, I scuff a shot which I know would have gone a long way to getting me back on track.

I can feel it’s a big miss, and by the time the final whistle goes, I’m gutted not to have kickstarted my season. But I have to keep going. I’m even more determined to prove to the fans that I’m the same player as before.
I’m having my worst season so far, but it’s not like I’m about to hang my boots up.

*****

I score a penalty against Rangers in the Champions League in the next game, but the league goals dry up. The fans are scratching their heads, trying to work out what’s wrong with me. Some of them are wondering whether it’s the end of an era, probably because when I do play well, the goals don’t come and they don’t see my name in the stats on the telly. Sure, a few chances go begging, but there are other times when goalies pull off world-class saves against me. On any normal day, a shot or two would have smashed into the back of the net. Instead they’re getting pushed away, scrambled off the line, but it doesn’t stop the negative talking.

In the pubs, on the radio, people are banging on about what I was as a player and how I’ve gone downhill. Experts and ex-footballers are writing all this rubbish about what I am and what I will be. They’re chatting like the game’s over
for me. They’ve forgotten that a few months earlier I was voted the PFA Players’ Player of the Year and The Football Writers’ Association Footballer of the Year. Now, I’m being regarded as a no-mark. It’s unbelievable how achievements are forgotten so quickly in football.

‘He’s past his best.’

‘He’s lost it.’

‘He’s not enjoying his football.’

‘It’s the beginning of the end.’

I try to shut it out. Every day for a couple of weeks, I think the same thing:

This bad run of form will pass, Wayne. You’ve got plenty of games and goals in you, it’s just that you’re on one of those dodgy spells that every footballer goes through from time to time. You haven’t got to prove yourself to anybody. You just need to prove yourself to the fans. You just need to prove to them that your heart is still at Old Trafford, that you still want to play out of your skin for them.

For the next few months, make up for the mistake.

Convince them to forgive you.

Prove that you want the same thing as they do …

Glory.

*****

I miss a penalty against Arsenal; we still win 1–0.

Convince them to forgive you.

Three weeks later on New Year’s Day I score in the 2–1 win over West Brom, my first goal in open play since March
2010. It’s the beginning of a new year, but it feels like the beginning of a new season.

Convince them to forgive you.

A month later, I score two in a 3–1 win over Aston Villa.

Convince them to forgive you.

Then a couple of weeks after that, on 12 February 2011, I smash in the best goal of my career: an overhead kick against Manchester City that sends Old Trafford absolutely nuts and ends up being the winner in a 2–1 victory.

Prove that you want the same thing as they do.

I go nuts.

The goal is a relief. City are on our tails in the title race and they’re proper Premier League contenders now. They’ve brought some serious names to the club, like Yaya Touré, David Silva, Edin Dzeko and James Milner. A lot of fans are making out that they’re proper title rivals. Scoring a winner as spectacular as that is a real hammer blow to their hopes. From now on, the belief is with us.

*****

I’m lucky that my game is based on hard work as well as skill. After a few months back in the first team, the fans can see that I’m giving everything on the football pitch. They know that I’m trying my best.
That I never give up.
Without that attitude, I wouldn’t have been able to make it up to the supporters so quickly.

I think that by growing up a passionate football fan myself, I’ll always have an appreciation of players that work hard. When I was a kid, if I could see that a footballer like Duncan Ferguson was putting in a shift for Everton, even when the rest of the team wasn’t playing great, then I’d always come away thinking,
Well, at least he tried.
I hope the United fans are thinking the same about me.

Look, I admit it, there have been games when we’ve been losing 3–0 with a minute left on the clock, and I’ve thought,
Ref, just blow your whistle. Just let us get out of here and get home so we can move on.
But even in those last minutes I never quit, because one goal might come and that could be the difference between winning and losing the Premier League (if it comes down to goal difference). And I couldn’t forgive myself if I didn’t try my hardest.

*****

Just when I thought I’d worked through the worst of it, I lose my head.

West Ham, Upton Park; 2 April 2011. It’s a pressure game, like every match in the Premier League is a pressure game, but we go two goals down – two pens from Mark Noble – and
I feel our strong position at the top of the table slipping away; Arsenal are several points behind us but they have a game in hand.
We cannot lose this game.
Then I score two goals to bring us level; the first a free-kick that curls in from about 25 yards, the second a shot past Rob Green that I set up with a neat touch which takes two defenders out of the game.

Not long afterwards, we win a penalty and I step up to take it. The pressure is unbelievable. It feels like a weight pressing down on me, something heavy sitting on my shoulders, pushing me down into the grass and the mud. My head stays strong.

I will not miss this penalty.

I fire the ball past Green and everything goes blank.

I don’t know what’s going on.

Suddenly I’m standing by the touchline.

I don’t know what’s going on.

I can hear the West Ham fans going mental, moaning, yelling.

What’s going on?

I start to snap out of it. There are people jumping around me, grabbing me. I can hear a noise. It’s me, I’m shouting, screaming. It’s as if all the pressure is pouring out. I feel spaced out, lightheaded.

We kill off the game and win 4–2, but as we celebrate in the dressing room, as the goals are being played on a telly in the corner, that’s when I see my face for the first time. I’m shouting, screaming and swearing into the cameras.

It’s the third goal, those seconds after the penalty. I’m in front of a TV cameraman and shooting my mouth off. It’s
being beamed into the living rooms of football fans around the country, the world even. My face is all twisted, scowling, angry, wound up. I’m ’effing and blinding.

Oh no.

I sit down at my spot in the dressing room and start to feel sick. I know I’ve let myself down.

So what do you do now?

Tell them that you didn’t know what you were doing?

Yeah right, because that’ll sound like a right cop-out when you get asked about it later. But it’s the truth, so what else can you say?

Tell them what really happened: that it was such a release to score, that your emotions took over, but you shouldn’t have lost it like that.

Hang on, though, it wasn’t as if you went looking for the TV cameras so you could gob off. You just got caught up in the moment. Will it be that bad?

I look over at the TV again, watching the action replay, my angry face

Yeah, it’ll be bad. Get on with it, Wayne. Apologise.

I collar a club spokesman.

‘Look, I need to release a statement,’ I say. ‘I want to say sorry to anyone who’s been offended.’

I put my hands up, but it’s not enough. I get banned for two games and everyone’s in uproar. The Manager is disappointed, but he knows it was a mistake, that it wasn’t intentional. The worst thing is that there are parents on the telly saying I’ve set a bad example to the kids who were watching.

I think:
As a parent I can understand their opinion, but people do things like that every week playing Sunday League. They get carried away because football is a passionate game. And I’ve seen parents watching their kids from the touchlines and they’re swearing their heads off. It happens all over the country. The difference is of course that they don’t have cameras there beaming the pictures into homes all over the world. Another lesson learned.

I got carried away, made a mistake, and now I regret it and genuinely feel sorry.

I know that if I could turn back the clock, I’d change it, it wouldn’t happen. My suspension means that I have to sit out the FA Cup semi-final against City and we lose 1–0. I’ve made a backwards step.