Fans Comment
Rick Tarleton

The Poor Bloody Fans!
17/04/05

A few months have passed since Rooney shocked us all by demanding a move away from the club he'd supported all his life, and by accepting a place at Manchester United of all clubs.  Why Rooney did this at first glance remains a mystery.  Was he "tapped up", to use the current jargon, by Gary Neville during the European Championship, or advised by Sven that he needed to be playing in the Champions' League?   I obviously can't answer the above questions, but move he did.

Gone but not forgotten!

Rooney's move hurt so much, more than Lineker's or even McMahon's, because he was so obviously a true blue.  His allegiance to Everton was the same as ours:  he was first and foremost a fan.

This set me thinking about loyalty in football.  Basically there are four layers of people involved in any professional club.  First, there are those who own it and run it — the directors and executives.  Secondly, there are the managers and coaching staff.  Thirdly, there are the players; and fourthly, the supporters.

Directors were traditionally local businessmen who put money into their local club as a means of asserting their wealth and perhaps to express their allegiance to their club.   Men like Bob Lord at Burnley epitomised this kind of traditional director.  But in the last 20 years this has changed.  Men like Bates, Ridsdale and our own Peter Johnson have swopped their club allegiance if they thought there was a better investment opportunity in another club.  Professional executives like Kenyon and Wyness go where they are paid the most.  So directors no longer necessarily are just fans who happen to be richer than the rest of us.

Managers and coaches have always gone from club to club.  We expect nothing more.  Even us fans are aware that people like Harry Redknapp will move on to his club's bitterest rivals without turning a hair, if they think their conditions or pay will improve.  It's ironic that managers often accuse players of disloyalty, yet they themselves are possibly football's real mercenaries.

Now we come to the players.  Fans feel that players identify with the team they play for, that it matters to them.  It does, but only professionally, only in so far as we all want our firm to do well.  Players move from club to club.  They go from their boyhood club, Leicester, to the League Champions, Everton — as Lineker did — because he knew that it was a professional promotion.  I moved jobs because I was promoted; players do exactly the same.  Gary Nelson, in his excellent books about his life as a professional footballer, tells of players in the dressing room listening to the football results on the radio and cheering and jeering at each other as the results came through.  Their "fandom" unaffected by their professional allegiance and, of course, Nelson was an Everton man.

As an amateur myself, I swapped clubs regularly without a moment's thought.  If I thought I could play for a team that suited me better, I changed clubs.

That leaves us with the fans.  Few of us change clubs; occasionally a kid changes to support Man. United or Chelsea because he wants to be on the winning side but, for most of us, it's a life-long allegiance, for better or worse, with no divorce under any circumstances.  When my first Goodison icon, Dave Hickson, left us to go to Villa, I cried; when he signed for Liverpool, I was so angry that I kicked the wall and broke my toe.  And Hickson, like Rooney was an Everton man.  Later on I realised, Hickson had a living to earn, just as I have had.  I moved for jobs, he moved for a job.  It's as simple as that.

We supporters are stuck with our lot.  We perhaps imbued too much faith in Rooney.  He is a professional footballer first and he chose to go where he and his advisors believe he can best further his career.  But just perhaps in a corner of the Old Trafford dressing room, he listens out for Everton's result and prays that we can join him and his team in next year's Champions League.  After all he was and is first and foremost an Everton fan and you can't change that.

Rick  Tarleton

Prepare to don your tin hat there Rick!  Too many Blues still think Rooney did the dirty by  turning his back on Everton — another hero turned Judas.  The fact that his necessary sale prevented Everton FC from falling into administration is overlooked by those same fans.  As was the "increase in borrowings" from February 2004 (£10M), which was paid back fourteen days after Rooney signed for United.  Funny arl 'game'...
 

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