SOCCER ANGLES/MICHAEL WALKER:Living in his own world has long been Rooney's strength on the pitch. The trouble is he has carried that arrogance into his unreal world
ONCE A BLUE, always a Blue. Via a T-shirt worn at Goodison Park in early celebration, that was how a young Wayne Rooney informed the world of his devotion to all things Everton. We understood, we knew the adolescent fervour that can stir a boy.
Once a Blue, always a Manc. A few years later, personalities, economics and ambition meant that those Blue things had changed. Whenever Rooney was around Liverpool fans, this would be their chant.
They mock Rooney, he accepts it, the mockery has at least part of its foundation in football. But what Rooney will encounter today on his return to Goodison is abuse and scepticism on an altogether different level. The fact he plays for Manchester United will still matter, but events have overtaken that.
Rooney has been discovering the many shades of the blues. That reads like a sympathetic sentence but it’s not, it’s merely recognition that Rooney is in a predicament.
It is one of his own making, that is for sure and one that will test again an assumption we have relied on about Rooney ever since that famous day when, aged 16, he ended Arsenal’s unbeaten run: that he is nerveless, impervious to outside factors.
On Tuesday night in Switzerland, after the tabloid sex storm had broken, Rooney turned out for England and it was as if the assumption was intact. He played with what could be described as freedom, he passed and harried and gave a typically relentless display.
It was only when Rooney scored that it appeared there was a different aspect to the night. Rooney’s tame celebration told of someone who has not been bottling up anger or frustration, but someone who was aware this was no moment to be marvelling at himself. Given that awareness and sensitivity to others have hardly been to the fore, this was a small sign of a light having been switched on.
But for how long? The sheer recklessness Rooney has shown in his private life is staggering, and it can happen again. Even aside from thinking about his wife, was he not conscious of his own celebrity and fame? He probably was – you cannot participate in the number of adverts he has and not be, surely – but this is where the Tiger Woods word “entitlement” enters the room. This is where the arrogance kicks in.
It would seem Rooney, like Woods and others, thought that the very fame which could expose him was actually insulation. Fame meant a certain pattern of behaviour, and getting away with it. Either because they were so thrilled to be in his company, or so well-paid, girls would kiss but not tell. Either way it was arrogance combined with stupidity. It’s not a good combination.
“I convinced myself normal rules didn’t apply,” Woods said of his life and style, and presumably none of his cohorts contradicted that opinion.
It is a widespread problem. Who tells Rooney he is wrong, even on minor issues? Who is there not to smooth the way? Who reminds the young and rich that they are in a bubble? You cannot help but feel that the masters of the universe mentality that affected/affects bankers is unchecked in sport too.
It is a long way from Tiger to Rohan Ricketts but the one-time Tottenham and Arsenal player who has pitched up in Moldova of late spoke this week of the same “entitlement” he experienced once he made the first team at Spurs.
“When I went on tour with one of my former clubs, girls would make their way to the players’ rooms offering pleasures,” Ricketts said. “The girls can be like vultures. Players will sleep with one another’s mistresses all the time as well – and some of the girls seemed to get their kicks out of that.”
Courtesy of John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ashley Cole and now Rooney, this is a world into which we are being shown more than a glimpse. It isn’t glorious and even the knowledge that this has always gone on for sportsmen – Pele, Best, Ali are just three of the greats to have “done a bit” as they say – is not preventing us feel there is now just too much information.
We are being brought closer to the reality of modern fame and football though. This is what it is really like, not just for the likes of Rooney, but for Ricketts.
They enter the bubble and discover life is okay in there. Living in his own world has long been the strength everyone acclaimed Rooney for on the pitch. The trouble is he and others have carried that arrogance down the tunnel and into our real world and their unreal one. But Rooney’s strength became a weakness. His bubble has popped.
Keane keeps sense of perspective
FOOTBALL MANAGERS, more than most, live with the burden of constant appraisal. Which brings us to Roy Keane. They call it sleepy Suffolk for a reason but there has been a benefit for Keane as he goes about revitalising both Ipswich Town and his managerial career. He has been able to go about his summer business away from the sort of attention that was unavoidable at a club like Sunderland.
So far that business has proved solid, even in difficult, changing circumstances. These days of “undisclosed fees” make it hard to come to final figures but the estimate around Portman Road on Thursday was that Keane is in credit this summer financially having sold captain Jon Walters to Stoke for the guts of €3.6 million.
Keane was unable (publicly at least) to give an exact net spend across three transfer windows at Ipswich but a ballpark figure is €8.5 million. That’s roughly what he spent on Anton Ferdinand at Sunderland. Judging by Ipswich’s unbeaten start that leaves them joint top of the Championship with QPR and Cardiff, Keane’s business has been better than that.
He was in relaxed form on Thursday, only bristling when the Rooney subject came up – “it’s none of my business. Or yours.” – and a nomination for manager of the month shows Keane has been impressing. Having finished 15th last season, he knows he needs to. But that mood will be tested first at Portsmouth today, then against QPR and Cardiff on Tuesday and next Saturday.
Keane said it will not be “defining”, but it will be informative.
QPR have money and Cardiff have Bellamy and subsidies. Keane has an owner who has tightened the budget. Three games on, Keane could look and sound sharp, or realistic.
