for england, wayne
By milo
Date: 21/6/2004
This one's gonna run and run, baby. At the moment you could gift wrap horse shit and stick a Wayne Rooney label on it and someone would buy it. Such is the nature of our hyperbolic society, unfortunately.
A nation of slavering vultures that taunted him as fat and over-rated for the last nine months now holds him dearly to its bosom and treats him as its own flesh and blood. He was private property before the European Championships. He is now very much public property, two games in. And I don't know about you, but it's making my skin crawl.
A few months back, there was a survey on this website asking Evertonians whether they felt the media were biased against us. A large proportion felt that Everton Football Club did not get significant enough coverage in the media. Well, now we have it, and how. Be careful what you wish for.
Personally, I couldn't care less what the nation thinks of us. The nation gets the media it deserves. Most of the happy-clappy idiots out there seem to buy into the whole Sky deal. It's clichéd, it's been said to death, but it doesn't make the point any less valid - Sky did not invent football. The opinions of the people out there who think that Everton are a joke club with joke fans who have struggled forever should be dismissed out of hand. Remember, if you're 25 and upwards, the chances are you've seen Everton Football Club win more than fans of most other teams will see in a lifetime. These people can't help being stupid, they deserve to be pitied, then ignored, but certainly not reviled.
That, however, would make for a short article.
So. 180 minutes of competitive international football, and every Tom, Dick and Harriet is ready and willing to tell you about Wayne Rooney. It seems you can learn a lot about something in three hours of studying it intently in a pub with five pints of weak lager and a big stupid ENGERLAND! hat as your only study aids.
We have a similar phenomenon with Wimbledon. For two weeks, people out there will tell you happily that Andre Agassi is a strong baseline player, that Tim Henman's backhand lets him down and that female tennis is in general a more appealing spectator sport than its male counterpart. Whilst I don't doubt that there are people who know plenty about tennis, why do they only ever seem to exist for two weeks of a year? Yes, I can read a newspaper too, and I can pass it off as my opinion but I'd have to hope that someone else hadn't read it, Otherwise I'd look a bit of a twat.
That applies to Wayne Rooney.
How can Jill, 45, married with two kids, living with husband in a semi-detatched house, working for EasyJet in the accounts department, who likes Simply Red, collecting porcelain hedgehogs and yoga and has never been to a live match because she supports England FC and you can't get the tickets, possibly expect me to take her opinion seriously when she says "Rooney should sign for someone good, like Chelsea, so he can develop"?
He's done alright so far, hasn't he Jill? Everton haven't prevented him from looking the best player in the squad yet. What will he learn from Ashley Cole, Sol Campbell and Owen Hargreaves that he doesn't already know? And anyway, you were yakking on about how the Premiership was a monopoly five minutes ago. How is selling your best player to one of the monopolists going to change that? Get kettle on.
How can Jeremy, a merchant banker with a private school education and a strong interest in "Union" (the only code), justify his comments that "Rooney's danger is that he'll go the way of Gascoigne" when he too has never been to a match and doesn't understand the basics of the offside rule, let alone that you can't be offside from a throw-in?
Oliver Holt paid lip service to it in the Mirror over the weekend and you could almost feel his joy dripping out of the sweaty rag as Oliver delivered his verdict. "He's not like Paul Gascoigne". Good spot, Oliver. One lived for attention and actively courted it. The other lives for his job. Hopefully Jeremy will have read it too, and if so, I look forward to him telling me on Monday night that he doubts Rooney will follow Gascoigne's example.
Come to think of it, how can Steve, a Grimsby Town fan who travels home and away and has done for 15 years, expect anything other than my derision when he tells me that Rooney's best position is in the hole?
Cheers, Steve, but the "hole" is a position made up for people who can't decide what their best position is. They can't tackle enough to be a midfielder and they can't score enough to be a forward. Teddy Sheringham, for example. Rooney's a goal scorer who is blessed with all round ability. Do you know how I know that? Because I watch him and I don't rely solely on newspaper opinion before I form my own. So shove that in your hole, please and thank you.
I'm being something of a hypocrite here in offering sweeping generalisations of people when I've only met their "type". I dare say that there are plenty of people out there who do have a valid opinion on Wayne Rooney. And who am I to judge whether their opinion is valid anyway?
Well, I'm usually fairly open to people's opinions, but I'm getting sick of hearing the same half-arsed, media stoked, lazy, tired shite that seems to follow Wayne Rooney around. First he's rubbish. Then he's fat. Then he's rubbish and fat. Then he's rubbish, fat and over-rated. Then he needs to curb that temper. Then he's rubbish, fat, over-rated and he'll end up like Gascoigne. And now? Well, he's brilliant, he should sign for someone good, because the club he plays for aren't good enough for him and he'll never develop.
Six years ago, it was Michael Owen. Two quiet games in this tournament, and all of a sudden he's finished. Indeed, pilloried in some parts of the media. By the Jill's, Jeremy's and Steve's of this world who have an opinion on everything in spite of the facts and not because of them.
Bear this in mind Wayne, and watch your back. And remember, these fickle fuckers will clap you onto the pitch when you play them next season because of your exploits this summer, and then they'll spend the next 90 minutes singing songs about pies and fatness and how you are shit. And if you don't score in every game, these people will be "disappointed" by you. They'll ring 5 Live and pontificate about whether maybe "Euro 2004" was a fluke; maybe you were a three game wonder.
And God help you if you ever have a stinker for England. Which you will, one day. They'll be burning effigies of you at Upton Park quicker than you can say "hasn't he done well to turn his career round and win over the nation in four short years".
Keep your head down, do your thing and try to ignore the knobheads who love to build you up almost as much as they love to knock you down.
We should enjoy him while we can. He may or may not be around for a while yet, but none of us will have a say in it. As a wise old head said on this site not so long ago, when you start getting paid you stop being a fan and you become an employee. He'll do right for himself first and foremost, and we should be thankful that we've seen him in the flesh and that he'll probably do his best not to stitch us up.
As for the rest of Joe Public - fuck off, this is Everton and it doesn't concern you.
some evil bastards. He was only 27
