Fans Comment
John Reilly

A Thought for Wayne
18 July 2004

Wayne Rooney: Down and Out?

I'm just going to get straight into this rant.  It's been eating away at me for far too long now — similar to the sort of flesh-eating bug that's been happily munching away on Leslie Ash for the last few months...  the lips alone should keep it going for an indefinite period yet.  By the way, how gay does Lee (Joe Longthorn) Chapman look?

We just knew it would happen, didn't we?  A spectacular Euro campaign and, all of a sudden, 'he's too big for Everton, he needs to move to progress to the next stage, to stop his career from stilting you understand'.  For God's sake, the kid's 18, how much can you stilt in a year and a half?  And anyway, correct me if I'm wrong, I don't remember him having that good a season for us anyway.  But that doesn't matter, 'cos when he pulls on the shirt we're behind him 100% and we know how good he is and how much better he's going to get.  We don't need Terry Venables to tell us that.

But apologies; I digress.  What I'd like to highlight to Wayne (if you're reading), his Shylockian money grabbing 'advisors', and the naive family of his that's starting to make the Sopranos look like an episode of The Good Life, is this:  I'd like to think that Everton, and when I say Everton I mean US — the supporters — as well as the management, have had a little bit to do with how well he's done so far.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not asking Wayne that he signs his new contract in blood, promising every Evertonian a slice of wedge from his contract; all I want is a little bit of recognition from him — to us.  Is that too much to ask Wayne, is it?  All you had to do during the Euro's when everyone was salivating over how classy you were every time you wiped your arse, was to say, 'I'm enjoying every minute and I hope I can carry it on next season with my boyhood team and give the supporters something to cheer.'  Or something similar.

But no, not a mention of Everton.  I know some will say he was fully focused on playing for England but come on, would one little mention of the club who pays his wages or the fans who idolise him been too much to ask for?  I don't think so.  I mean, he waxed lyrical about how great the England fans were, didn't he?  I don't remember too much difference between them singing Rooooooney to us singing Roooooney last season.

So, how come all of a sudden he's too big?  And, more importantly, why does it happen that, every time we have a player play for England, he either comes back crocked or ready to move onto the 'next challenge' — or maybe, in the case of Wayne, both!  A proper double whammy for the Blues.  Let me, in my humble opinion, tell you why.

It's because we're mugs.  Plain and simple as that: mugs.  We wear our hearts on our sleeves.  We are the footballing equivalents of, in the eyes of any high court judge, a shed-load of fragrant Mary Archers standing by our own Jeffrey Archer.  And, as much as I respect Bill Kenwright for remortgaging his house and putting himself in hock for the club he loves, he's the biggest, most fragrant mug of the lot.

I can just see Bill dreaming of Wayne Rooney - The Stage Show.  With our hero scoring an overhead winner in the last minute, like Pele in his last competitive game, Escape to Victory, lifting the European Cup to the sounds of Rocking All Over The World from the 'Quo', or someone equally crap, in the background.

Who would play Wayne?  There's a question... maybe Tyrone out of Corrie.  Anyway, back to the point (if there is one), we are mugs who believe that once someone pulls on the Royal Blue shirt, pats THAT plague on the way out of the tunnel, and feel the hairs on the back of their neck bristle to the strains of Z-Cars, then that's it.  hey're hooked, like the rest of us.  Well, guess what: they ain't.

Just look at the Canadian knob who apparently 'runs his arse of' for a season — neglecting to mention that he couldn't hit the proverbial cow's arse with a banjo — and then, all of a sudden, the contract he's on isn't good enough and it should be extended for three more years.  I seem to remember an article in a national newspaper not long after Moyes's arrival in which the same Canadian (apologies to any Canadians, it's not a Canadian thing) knob said how great Moyes is, how much his own fitness has improved thanks to his training methods.  How much everyone enjoys the training and how that there was now so many formerly injured players now wanting to train that they had to split into two camps.  Short memories eh, maybe he could do with giving Moyes a cut of his new contract as a thank you.  Somehow I think not.

But back to Wayne.  Wayne, I'm making a plea directly to you, and I'm ignoring the rumours that you've already signed for United and thus rendering my argument invalid.  Don't follow the rest of them: the Jeffers, the Barmbys, the Madars!  Stay and prove your worth.  You are pivotal to the future of this club.  If, in your youthful naivety, you think it's for the best of the club if you go — it's not.  At best, it's a short term fix, a sticking plaster on a gangrenous limb.  This club is YOURS and MINE and the hundreds of thousands of Blues across the globe.  This is the club you supported from a babe in arms.

You know what it is to be a Blue and, better still, you're living the dream in all its Technicolour.  Please don't let them take away one of the last true remaining pure fantasies from the beautiful game that 'they' have turned into a dark, untrusting underworld.  Let your honesty shine through like a beacon for future generations of not only Blues but all football supporters to grasp and to carry forward.

But after all of this, I'm a realist.  If you decide to go, Wayne, enjoy the money, enjoy whatever success brings you and have a good life.  Just remember us every time you go past the arena that was once Goodison Park... and feel the shame burn deep.

John Reilly
A soon to be broken-hearted Blue

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