THE NICK ARMITAGE COLUMN

Compare and Contrast

A few years ago there was a talented midfielder who played for Everton. This player left a championship winning side, albeit on the decline, to play for his boyhood team. He gave his best years to Everton when they were in turmoil, to say the least. Quite a few blues know the reason why this player left Everton, but every time he comes home, the thousands who sing the shithouse song obviously don’t know why.

Gary Speed left Everton heartbroken for reasons that many Evertonians already know, but I know these reasons are true, because a former player told me. After leaving he simply got on with is career at clubs he probably had no love for.

A couple of years ago there was a very talented forward who played for Everton. Young Wayne back then was playing the best football he has ever played, for the club he said he loved, but that wasn’t enough was it? His lying agent seized his opportunity to stuff his pension pot to bursting and turned Wayne’s head to accomplish this. Money, medals and private yachts could all be his if he listened to the wise words of Paul Stretford. So Wayne listened and he got his pay rise and Paul made more money than he ever dared to imagine he would.

To add even more cash to the Rooney portfolio he signed a deal to ‘write’ five books about himself. Thanks to the red tops the only thing the public doesn’t know about Wayne is what he really got up to with the Auld Slapper; but perhaps that’s a little too saucy for an ‘auto’biography by HarperCollins. The average Daily Mail reader reading the serialisation over breakfast would choke on his Bran Flakes if they heard how a PVC clad grandmother took advantage of a sixteen-year-old boy by riding him for the princely sum of forty-five quid. So the next best thing to create a little controversy, and to sell a few more books, was to shoot both barrels at his former Manager of the Year.

While both barrels were still smoking David Moyes happened to be half way around the world with more important things on his mind than putting up a rearguard action against some impudent money grabbing little shit and his cohorts.

Both Gary Speed and Wayne Rooney left Everton for their own reasons. One was pretty much forced out and the other one claims to have been forced out. One has kept a dignified silence since, despite being unjustly vilified by his former fans and the other one has twisted the knife into the club he claimed to love, for a few dollars more.

One ex-player is a man who has integrity and pride in himself and the other one blatantly hasn’t.

Responses

While Gary Speed's public persona and general conduct throughout his career both on and off the field, should set him apart from Wayne Rooney when comparing the two, it's worth noting in the context of Nick's article that Speed signed a confidentality agreement when he left Everton for Newcastle in 1998. He was, therefore, legally bound not to "rat" on the club and reveal the real reasons why he left Goodison in such apparently acrimonious circumstances.

As for those reasons, rumours that the "drink culture" that existed during Howard Kendall's third spell as Everton manager appear to have been merely a contributing factor to Speed's departure. The overriding factor apparently concerns a person employed by the club back then and who is still involved in the game so it would not be sensitive to anyone concerned for us to reveal the exact details.
Lyndon Lloyd