THE CRAZY RAIN ON WAYNE
By
Mickey Blue Eyes.

If there’s one subject that appears to disable rational thought amongst footy fans it’s that of Wayne Rooney. And it is well nigh useless assuming the main guilty parties will ever attain maturity in the matter. Apocalypse seems to loom large in the minds of these dolts whichever train of events transpires. According to those crazies, (a) if he goes it’s the end of the footy world as we know it, and (b) if he stays we’ve missed out on a once in a lifetime opportunity to trouser a hefty profit. Of course both of these propositions are bollocks. Meanwhile, nobody, NOBODY, considers for a moment what the young man himself thinks or wants. Everybody without exception wants a piece of him. And don’t kid yourself, that includes us fans. It is a sickening sight and sound. All it does is illustrate how corrupt and sick is the game and our culture, or what passes for it..

So, wearily, we look at the situation yet again and try to set the record straight by addressing sensible fans. I never bother with the other dickheads since, like you, I have better things to do with my time.

It needs to be said straight away that the club do not want to sell Rooney and he doesn’t want to go. They both keep saying so. At this stage it wouldn’t be in either our or his interests. It’s too early and he’s too inexperienced at most things, and anyway even fifty million sterling would only temporarily alleviate our situation. Likely it will change in a year or two after his first full season in the first team as a first choice. The rookie period will be over. So much is common sense. There are no guarantees because there are no guarantees for anyone in any walk of life at any time. Wayne Rooney is no exception no matter how great a football player he is or is likely to become.

But of course that won’t stop assorted paranoid loons dreaming up some form of conspiracy theory about how the club is setting him up for transfer against his wishes. The sheer stupidity of such a thought is so self-evident it shouldn’t need more than a brusque, “Ah, FUCK off will yer.” Usually it is nothing more than a bolt-hole for somebody who needs a scapegoat for his/her disappointment in life, let alone the continuing lack of success by Everton Football Club. Whenever you hear it, it will tell you more about the perpetrator than reality. Especially if you see it in the media. The fact is, like it or not, whether he goes or stays depends on a number of factors and how they come together at crucial moments. If they didn’t gell properly he could be on his way tomorrow.

Much of what happens will depend upon how the young man completes his Rites of Passage and reaches toward maturity as a man and a professional footballer. In turn this is greatly affected by his family background – which is strictly the preserve of those good people themselves and nobody else, the media, you and me included – and his friends and acquaintances and the life experiences he undergoes. Anything could happen. If he falls in with the wrong crowd and believes the muck they peddle it could ruin him. We have seen it all before in many other players across the world. The choice rightly is his own. However gifted he may be Wayne Rooney is merely another human being. Eventually he will go the way of all flesh.

If he has a modicum of common sense he will decide his own priorities and instruct his agent accordingly. For his own sake I hope he shows the kind of strength of mind he shows on the football field. Like you, I utterly despise leeches like Paul Stretford his agent, a man who makes huge amounts of money for doing hardly anything except live off the backs of genuine talent. If professional footballers would only educate and organise themselves properly they wouldn’t need that kind of scum in their lives. Be that as it may, the Stretfords of this world exist and have to be taken into account for the present. (As a side issue, if the fans too would organise themselves properly they too would have to be taken into account and that would certainly help curtail the activities of scuttling rats like football agents and other hangers-on and spivs.)

Plainly it is in Streford’s interests to manipulate a transfer since he will get a hefty cut of the very large transfer fee. And what for? Filling in some forms and making a few phone calls? Therefore you can automatically assume he will make his plans to suit. This may or may not include occasional whispers in Wayne’s ear and an ensuing gradual build up of dissatisfaction through causes real or imagined. All Streftford has to do is exaggerate the real ones and invent any number of others. Once an agent has established a network of contacts the rest is easy. If he has reliable contacts in the media he can arrange to plant unsettling “stories” for which the writer will be suitably rewarded. The football media world is a good deal more narrow than you can imagine. Pigs at a trough spring to mind. But they are only two factors.

Where Everton Football Club are concerned it is A FACT OF LIFE we are in no financial shape to resist a genuine offer of ludicrous proportions no matter how much you juggle the figures. No club is. Beckham left Manchester United, Figo left Barcelona, Ferdinand left Leeds and Gerrard and Owen may even leave the pinkies. Given the disgusting barrow-boy nature of the modern game the Everton directors would be outright negligent if they failed to consider an exaggerated bid of, say, £60 million. There’s no point whining about this. It is the nature of the institutionally corrupt beast, the creature the media are afraid to truly investigate and campaign against. It is much easier for them to build up then knock down a personality, as they have done with Rooney even during his brief career. It will never change until the fans simply stay away and deprive the game and the media of the cash it needs to survive. Which of course is a paradox, but not an impossible one to solve. So if you accept the corrupt status quo you have no choice. Only money counts. Forget loyalty of any kind, the players or yours.

Then put yourself in The Duke’s place. Assuming he doesn’t get badly injured or suffer a permanent loss of form he will have a chance to secure his and his family’s financial future. Doubtless that will be one of Stretford’s pitches. What would you do in the same position? Ignore it and say, “I don’t care about the money. I just want to play for Everton”? How long does such naïve idealism last in any walk of life? And what happens when he has the inevitable loss of form? Fickle fans whining away about a “lost” transfer money opportunity?

The fact is a player with Wayne Rooney’s gifts owes us nothing, nothing at all. Almost certainly he would have made it wherever he started out. He is that good. Yes, it’s true that David Moyes has helped him along with great care, possible better than the young man can recognise at this point in his life. It’s a safe bet he’ll see it later on though. But Alex Ferguson (for one) did the same thing with Beckham and Giggs at Manchester United and various pinky managers did it too with Fowler, McManaman and others at analfield. There are plenty of other successful examples to overwhelm the sad spectre of Paul Gascoigne, that tragic, cheap metaphor the media conjure to suit their lack of perception and sick promotion of sensationalism.

The idea that the departure of Wayne Rooney would mean football has lost its “soul” is just so much self-pitying hogwash. What was left of that “soul “– and it wasn’t much – was lost the moment the so-called Premier League was founded, and when the contractual status and freedom of players was redefined to their advantage. People who peddle this line are more concerned about the success of Everton Football Club than they are about Wayne Rooney’s future. They are part of the problem, not the solution. As I said, they too want their piece of the young man. But instead of having the courage to say so out loud they all too readily hide behind the kind of sickly sentimental claptrap that wouldn’t be out of place in a Barbara Cartland book. Why SHOULD Wayne listen to them when more than likely the same individuals are the very ones who would turn on him if and when his playing form gets into difficulties? It is a lesson he will learn the hard way as he gets older. Sensible, sorely-tried fans will hope he manages to avoid the extremes of cynicism.

The unfortunate fact is that too many fans have become every bit as hypocritical as the media who feed their worst paranoia. Instead of enjoying Rooney’s talents while he is with us they are far too intent on arranging his life to suit their own neuroses. It’s a fairly safe bet the same people had little or nothing to say years ago when we were in a position to buy good players from disadvantaged clubs. Now the boot is on the other foot suddenly they’ve found their footing. How convenient.

Such a mentality will always require a scapegoat for adverse events. It almost doesn’t matter who it is. It could be the player himself, the manager, or the directors. Such a mindset won’t be capable of understanding that this is the way things will work for as long as the present system applies. Howling at the moon and wallowing in self-pity will achieve exactly nothing. Singling out individuals no matter how good or bad they might be misses the point by some distance. In truth there is no individual to blame. The system is the culprit. And until that sinks in there can be little or no progress and not much hope for major change. You have to acknowledge the real problem before you can solve it.

Long term, there is only an uncertain outline case to be made for selling Wayne anyway. Football being what it is there are many emotional intangibles that bear on the cold calculations. At his age, that’s the way it is. Why do so many people forget this when they get older? Can it be they haven’t the courage to face up to the sheer fragility of human nature, that truth isn’t a mere inconvenience to be brushed under the carpet to suit chauvinist neurosis?

In fact I haven’t the slightest idea whether Wayne Rooney will stay or go. Emphatically, I want him to stay because he’s a great player and he’s an Evertonian, One Of Us. Probably we won’t see his like for another generation, and of course that would make it all the harder to bear if he does leave.

But there is one person more important than all the lying, conniving cunts in the media and all the self-obsessed, self-pitying dickheads amongst the worst fans, agents, hangers-on and chancer spivs (self-styled “businessmen” and “entrepreneurs,” in actual fact nothing but liars and cheats) who infest the game like lice. It is the young man himself, an individual with his own dreams and wishes, his own commitments, his own emotions and his own future to think about and somehow resolve in the imperfect way everyone else does. And whatever I might think or might want, I hope Wayne Rooney keeps his head as clear as possible and gets fairly what HE wants from life with minimum cost to himself, his family and his REAL friends. If he does that he will have managed to avoid the worst affects of everyone clawing at him to get “their” piece of his wonderful natural abilities.

At the moment his greatest non-playing asset is his refreshing wide-eyed innocence and enthusiasm, one of the chief reasons he has attracted such widespread admiration. Once that begins to fade he will be left with the difficult choice we all face as adolescence falls into the past – how do you apply your new knowledge to your life and how do you apply it to your own evolving principles? Like everyone else he will have to draw the line somewhere. This especially applies to the subject of money, who makes it and why they make it. Since a footballer’s life is relatively short the question has even more intensity than it has in day-to-day non-sports life.

I hope he makes it in every sense of the word. It’s his life, nobody else’s. None of the fans currently whining on about THEIR dreams will want to know him once his playing days are over or if he suddenly loses his abilities.

Think on that next time before you kick off about loyalty. (22/06/04)

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