The Wonder Kid Everton's best-kept secret is out We've been awaiting the arrival of Wayne Rooney with eager anticipation for a while now, and now that he has exploded so dramatically onto the big stage and scored his first goal for the club without having yet completed 90 minutes for the first team, we can start to believe some of the hype surrounding this precocious young talent. The timing, the audacity and importance of Rooney's last-minute strike that ended Arsenal's terrific unbeaten run has, unfortunately, ensured maximum publicity for the boy who turns 17 today. In fact, such has been the spontaneous eruption of Rooney-mania in the national media, we Evertonians could be forgiven for wishing that we could put the cork back in the bottle and go back to nurturing the biggest thing to happen at Goodison in decades in peace. Here, by way of featuring the new hero in Blue, we present links to many of the articles about young Master Rooney that have appeared in recent days: •Rush to Praise Rooney Not in Wenger's Style - The Independent •Hailing a New Hero -icLiverpool •Rooney is Not Finished Product - BBC Sport •Rooney Gets Reality Check - BBC Sport •The Boy with the World at his Feet - The Independent •Today is Wayne Rooney's Birthday... - The Guardian •Wayne's World - Fox Sports World (USA) •Roeder Believes Rooney is in Safe Hands - Electronic Telegraph Wayne's world by Giles Elliott, FOX Sports World Oct. 23, 2002 It was hard to pinpoint the best achievement in sports last weekend. The call is even harder to make given that my top two choices have barely started shaving! How about Francisco Rodriguez recording nine straight outs for the Anaheim Angels in Game Two of the World Series against San Francisco on Sunday? The 20-year-old Venezuelan got Barry Bonds to ground out and struck out four over three perfect innings, and ran his postseason record to 5-0 in the process, tying Randy Johnson’s record. Does that make Rodriguez the Young Unit? As the old adage goes, if you’re good enough, you’re old enough. K-Rod, though, is a wily old veteran in comparison to the other young man who was busy making his mark on Saturday. We’re talking about a teenager who now goes by the name of Roo-naldo. Five days before his seventeenth birthday, Everton striker Wayne Rooney announced his arrival by smashing a 30-yarder, in the 90th minute, into the top corner of a net minded by England’s number one goalkeeper. Arsenal’s David Seaman groped at thin air, and the Gunners’ 30-game unbeaten streak was over. Rooney became the first 16-year-old to score in the EPL. It wasn’t just the goal though. It was the touch to bring the ball under control, the look up, and the confession after the game by Toffees manager David Moyes, himself the youngest coach in the EPL, that Rooney is constantly frustrating the Everton coaching staff with his can-do attitude. “Sometimes we have a bit of a go at him for trying unrealistic shots from that range, but this time I felt with the space in front of him that he had a serious chance to score, and he did it pretty well.” Pretty well? Excellent, I’d say. Welcome to Wayne’s World. Like Rodriguez, Rooney started playing as soon as he could walk. Instead of baseball in a Caracas barrio, it was football in the Liverpool council estate of Croxteth, where young still Wayne lives with his parents and two brothers, all Everton season ticket holders. His father, Wayne senior, says that he first took his boy to Goodison Park at the age of six months. Blue blood runs in Wayne’s veins. Last season, Rooney was the spearhead and captain of the Everton youth team, taking the young Toffees to the final of the FA Youth Cup. Everton lost that match, 4-2 on aggregate to Aston Villa (whose skipper Stefan Moore is now making his mark at the senior level too), but not before Rooney had taken his tally in the competition to eight goals. He stepped up to the senior plate this autumn. Exactly a month and a day before K-Rod made his big league debut for the Angels, David Moyes named Roo-naldo as a starter for Everton’s first EPL match of the season, against Tottenham. He did enough to earn his adult spurs, but had to be content with a substitute’s role for much of the next month. Rooney’s next big day came on October 1st, when the 16-year-old scored twice in Everton’s 3-0 win at Wrexham in the Second Round of the Worthington Cup. I hope the sponsors, a brewing company, named Wayne as Man of the Match. I’m sure Toffee supporters celebrated his feats with something stronger than milk or Coca-Cola. Party on. Those strikes also made Rooney his club’s youngest ever goal-scorer, 153 days more bright-eyed and bushy-tailed than Tommy Lawton, who first netted for the Toffees in February 1937. Lawton went on to become a legend, scoring 65 goals in just 87 league games for Everton and 231 goals in only 390 matches in his league career, not to mention 22 goals in 23 games for England. He was one of the first icons of the game, “a star from his dubbin-smothered toe-caps to his glistening center parting,” according to one biography. Records tumbled in Lawton’s wake too. The only England player to have scored in five consecutive internationals, a feat he managed twice. Scorer of England’s fastest ever goal, after 17 seconds against Portugal in 1947. The youngest player to score a hat-trick in the English league, for Burnley before he even joined Everton. The first £20,000 player in English football history. After the end of his playing days and a brief management career, Lawton retired and ended up running a pub. He died in 1996 at the age of 87. So what fate awaits the young Rooney? Will he become a legend like Lawton, or come close to emulating another Boy Wonder, Liverpool’s Michael Owen? Owen was the youngest scorer in the EPL before Rooney, and is still the England national team’s youngest scorer. Alternatively, will Wayne wind up like Jason Dozzell, the youngest person to score in England’s top flight (the old First Division)? Dozzell was just 16 years and 57 days old when he netted the first of his 73 goals for his hometown club Ipswich, against Coventry in 1984. After leaving Town, however, he was hounded out from Spurs and returned with his tail between his legs to Suffolk. The homecoming provided no relief from the fan abuse though and Dozzell dropped into the lower divisions with Northampton and Colchester. He was last seen playing non-league football for Canvey Island. For every Alan Shearer, model professional and youngest hat-trick scorer in England’s top flight, there is a Norman Whiteside, youngest scorer in the FA Cup Final and professional drinker. The prognosis for Rooney is good though. Already protected by family and club from the pressures of fame, Wayne looks as though he could look after himself in any case. He’s not small for a 16-year-old. Then there’s the small matter of a 17th birthday present. Happy Birthday, Wayne. A new contract, which will reportedly earn the teenager $15,000 a week for the next three years. $15,000 a week! At 17! No way! Way.