“Remember the name,” Clive Tyldesley said and remember the name we did.
Wayne Rooney did not just announce his arrival with a stunning goal against Arsenal 14 years ago today, he inspired one of football commentary’s most memorable lines. It is one of those, like “It’s up for grabs now” and “They think it’s all over” which belongs to the subject as much as the speaker and in Rooney’s case it established a standard that he has been trying to live up to ever since.
The Rooney of today is different to the one who burst onto the scene as a 16-year-old against Arsenal on October 19, 2002. The days of being on £75 per week and living in Croxteth have long gone, so too has the time when he was viewed as one of English football’s most exciting tyros.
With the passage of time, the gradual dimming of a light that was supposed to shine brighter than any other but never quite did and the inevitable erosion of the innocence that made him so compelling, Rooney now occupies a very different place.
From being the player that everyone wanted to see, he is now one that many believe they have seen enough of; a journey that says as much about us as it does about him.
Approaching the age of 31, Rooney’s decline was to be expected but so too was our reaction to it. The tradition of losing patience with and interest in footballers once they move past their best has long been established.
In some ways that is entirely natural but in others it is unnecessarily brutal and it begs the question whether we need to become more mature about dealing with sporting maturity?
As an Evertonian, Rooney will be aware that at the end of their playing days Kevin Ratcliffe and Peter Reid, two of his heroes, were occasionally treated harshly by the Goodison Park crowd when the qualities that had made them league title winners began to deteriorate.
As a Merseysider, he will know that this is not exclusive to Everton as John Barnes, whose substitution was once greeted with ironic cheers by those at Anfield after his days as a flying winger had long passed.
As a friend of Steven Gerrard, he will know the anguish that the former captain of Liverpool and England experienced when the number of people writing him off went from a trickle to a flood.
The sporting arena is harsh at the best of times and when young legs make way for an experienced head, you are only a short step away from discovering how unforgiving it can be and the process can be even more unpleasant the better you have been.
It is easier to be a 31-year-old Leon Osman, for example, than it is to be a 31-year-old Rooney. It remains one of football’s most cruel truisms that the minute you raise expectations, you become hostage to them and the moment Rooney scored that goal and people remembered his name, he also guaranteed that when his own fall from grace arrived it would be accompanied by brickbats for what he could no longer do rather than bouquets for what he had done.
To make matters worse for Rooney, he has come to be seen as a symbol of Manchester United’s recent decline. Again, in some ways that is fair because, like the team he plays for, he is not performing to the standard he was three years ago, and in others it is unfair as no individual can be held responsible for the sudden deterioration of a club unless they are the one running it.
At a stage of his career when he needed better management, Rooney was subjected to worse and in the end his presence in the team became negative. It had no need to reach this stage but it has and there will be no turning back. Things have gone too far for that.
Rooney is now something that he never wanted to be; a squad player, and worse still he is one without a clearly defined role.
Jose Mourinho will not now create one for him as to do so would be to reignite an issue that he has only just extinguished. The best that Rooney can now hope for is that a diminishing of status will at least allow him to be at his most energetic when opportunities to make an impact do come along.
There will be no more raging against the dying of the light, no more supportive statements from loyal friends and former team mates willing to take on anyone and everyone who questions his right to play. This is end game and he knows it, even if he is still trying to dress it up as a new departure with many possibilities.
“It’s football,” Rooney said after United’s goalless draw with Liverpool on Monday. “I’ve started through all my career. This is a new challenge, it is a new period. I want to play. I just have to keep working and get into the team. I’m sure chances will come then it is up to me to take them. I like to think I can play every game but it’s the manager’s decision and I respect that. I will be ready when I’m needed. I’m 31 next week. I’ve got a lot of football left.”
It is now, as he looks to bridge the gap between his prime and the unavoidable, inevitable end that Rooney’s achievements are lent most perspective. The nagging feeling remains that his potential was not quite confirmed, that he fell short of becoming the player that he could have been.
That, though, raises the question of what exactly it was that we were expecting him to be? If it was anything more than a serial trophy winner, a prolific recipient of individual awards, a record goalscorer for country and possibly club, then maybe we were expecting too much.
This was a player, it should be remembered, who could easily have taken a route away from football as others of a similar background have done, as Colin Harvey, his mentor at Everton, recently recalled “I always used to go to Bellfield early. I was going through one day, not far from where he lived in Croxteth and I saw a gang of four or five kids across the road. As I got closer I saw that Wayne was one of them,” Harvey said.
“It was about 5.30am so when I got to Bellfield I rang his dad and asked him to come in and to bring Wayne with him. I just said to him ‘Do you want to be a footballer or do you want to be an also ran?’ He said ‘Why’s that?’ And I told him I’d seen him that morning with a right crew and he needed to make his mind up what he wanted to be. His dad put him in the car and then came back in and said to me ‘I’ve been dying to say that to him for ages.’ Anyway, he did make his mind up and went on to become England’s record goalscorer.”
That things may not have turned out exactly as Rooney would have wished is not in doubt. He would have preferred to have made an even bigger impact for England regardless of becoming his country’s most prolific scorer and he would have preferred his years at the top not to have taken the toll that they have.
Most of all, he would like his talent to be as respected for what it once was rather than being constantly highlighted for what it no longer is. Like every great player who reaches this stage, that is the least that he deserves. Fourteen years on, it is not just about remembering the name, it is about giving it the respect that it deserves.
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