Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (6 page)

*****

There’s one thought I can’t shake: the first time I was introduced to The Manager properly was when I signed for United at Old Trafford in the summer of 2004. I’d spoken to him once or twice when Everton played United – a quick hello in
the tunnel, but that was it. The day I joined the club, I met him at Carrington and I was dead excited.

He drove me to Old Trafford and told me how I was going to fit into the team and how he wanted me to play. He told me about my new teammates: winger Ryan Giggs, England internationals Rio Ferdinand, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville; my new strike partner, Ruud van Nistelrooy – a goal machine.

I talked about the times I’d played at Old Trafford for Everton, how I’d been blown away by the atmosphere there. I’d even said to my dad afterwards, ‘I want to play for them one day.’

It was surreal. I’d been watching him on the telly for years with players like Eric Cantona and David Beckham, but I never imagined that it would happen to me. Later, when word got around back home about my day, a mate sent a text over.

‘BLOODY HELL!!!’ he said. ‘CAN’T BELIEVE U’VE GOT FERGIE CHAUFFEURING U AROUND.’

The Manager seemed like a really good bloke, but the next day I experienced his legendary influence first hand. It was a nice afternoon, so I drove over to Crocky to see the family. On the way, I spotted Mum and Dad in the car park of the local pub and I pulled over to say hello. We decided to go in for a drink, a diet pop for me. I was only there for 10 or 15 minutes before I went home, but a day later, The Manager called me into his office. My first summons.

‘Wayne, what were you doing in that pub in Croxteth yesterday?’ he said.

I couldn’t believe it. I’d not been in there long, but long enough for someone to make a phone call and grass me up. To this day I still don’t know who did it. I left the meeting knowing one thing, though:
The Manager has eyes and ears everywhere
.

Within weeks I know plenty more stuff. He has an amazing knowledge of the game. When we play teams, he knows everything about the opposition, and I mean everything. If a player has a weakness on his right foot, he knows about it. If one full-back is soft in the air, he’ll have identified him as a potential area of attack. He also knows the strengths of every single player in the other team’s squad. Before games we’re briefed on who does what and where. He also warns us of the players we should be extra wary of.

His eye for detail is greater than anyone else’s I’ve ever worked with, but that’s one of the reasons why I signed for him. That and the fact that he’s won everything in the game:

The Premier League.

The FA Cup.

The League Cup.

The Community Shield.

The Champions League.

The UEFA Cup Winners’ Cup.

The UEFA Super Cup.

The World Club Championship.

The Intercontinental Cup.

You can’t argue with a trophy cabinet like that.

*****

I start my first league game for United against Boro’ in October and we begin the game badly. By now I’ve learned that The Manager expects one thing from us when we play: to win.

After half an hour, we’re a goal down and unable to get a foothold in the game. I’m not playing well and he’s shouting at me from the dugout. I pretend not to hear him. I don’t turn around, I don’t want to make eye contact. I know he’s shouting, but I can’t really make out what he’s saying because the crowd’s so loud. I definitely don’t want to get up close enough to hear him because I know it’ll be scary.

He looks terrifying on the touchline.

We eventually draw 1–1 against Boro’ but The Manager isn’t happy. It’s a game we should have won and in my first few months at United I learn quickly that we have to attack until the end of a game, no matter what the score is. That’s The Manager’s football philosophy. He tells us that he wants the players to get behind the ball when we’re defending and move with speed when we’re attacking. He wants us to draw the opposition in, to lull them into a false sense of security. ‘That’s when they’ll start stringing passes together, growing in confidence,’ he tells us. ‘But it’s a trap.’

That’s when we’re supposed to win the ball back and punish the other lot with some quick passes through midfield. ‘The opposition won’t stand a chance,’ he says.

The ball needs to be fired out wide and hit into the box to me and Ruud. My role in all of this is to make good runs in behind the defence. When the ball comes to me in deeper areas I’m supposed to hold it up and bring other players into the game, like Ronaldo. When the ball gets played out wide I have to head for the box and get on the end of crosses.

If we play well, Carrington is a happy place. After Fenerbahçe, The Manager allows us to enjoy our training. We watch videos of all the things we’ve done well in a game and he tells us to continue playing the way we are. He wants us to keep up our winning momentum. If we can do that, the canteen is a happier spot for everyone.

Arsenal, 24 October 2004.

Needle match.

It’s a needle match because Arsenal have been title rivals with United for over a decade. The two teams have had some pretty tasty games with one another in the past and there have been rucks, 20-man scraps and red cards.

The worst game took place the previous season when it kicked off between both sets of players. As I watched the game on the telly after playing for Everton, a row started between Ruud and some of the Arsenal lads – the type of fight fans always love watching. It began when striker Diego Forlan won a penalty; the Arsenal lot began complaining that he’d dived for it and when Ruud then spooned his spot-kick, a mob of their players crowded around him and got in
his face, winding him up. They were angry because they thought he had got their skipper, Patrick Viera, sent off earlier in the game, but the reaction was horrible. Martin Keown was the worst; he screamed at Ruud and jumped up and down like a right head case. His eyes nearly popped out. He looked like a zombie from a horror film.

Now it’s my turn to be in the thick of one of the biggest battles in the Premier League.

In the build up there’s loads of talk about the atmosphere of the match around town; the papers are going on about the previous season’s clash and I can’t turn on the telly without seeing
that
scuffle between Ruud and Keown. It’s obviously bothering Ruud because he’s been quiet for days. There’s an atmosphere about him. He’s withdrawn and he doesn’t talk to the other lads in the dressing room at Carrington as much.

In the short time I’ve known Ruud he’s always looked focused, but this week there’s something else going on inside his head, something driving him on. No one asks him about the game or his mood, but I can tell that he wants to prove a point. I reckon that his penalty miss against Arsenal must have weighed on him for months.

When it comes to the match, both teams are up for it – the Arsenal players even hug one another before the game, like they’re getting ready to go into a battle – and once the footy gets underway the atmosphere at Old Trafford is horrible, moody, because the two sides are at one another’s throats. It’s my 19th birthday, but nobody’s dishing out any prezzies on the pitch.

The game is evenly matched, though. We’re at home and looking to kick-start our season again after those disappointing draws against Birmingham and Boro’; Arsenal are on a 49-game unbeaten streak and they’re a great team – Dennis Bergkamp, Ashley Cole, Thierry Henry and Patrick Vieira are all playing and they’re on top of their game, but the thing is they know it. All week they’ve been banging on about how great it will be to make it to 50 games undefeated at Old Trafford.

Big mistake. They’ve fired us up.

Fifty games unbeaten? No way. Not at our place.

Already I know that this is the way a footballer has to think if they’re to do well at United.

Nobody gets to believe that we’re a pushover.

The tackles fly in thick and fast from the start, every loose ball matters. After a tight first half, we go in at the break goalless, then in the second, Ruud gets a chance to make up for last year’s penalty miss when on 73 minutes I burst into the area. Sol Campbell makes a fair tackle and nicks the ball but his momentum brings me down. He decks me. I hear a whistle and I know straightaway that the ref is pointing to the spot because the crowd are going nuts and Ashley Cole and Sol are complaining, shouting that I’ve dived, that I’ve not been tripped. The funny thing is, they’re both right and wrong: I haven’t been fouled, but I haven’t dived either. Instead, there’s been a coming together and it’s given the ref a decision to make. Thankfully for us he gives the penalty.

Everyone starts looking to Ruud, who’s already got the ball in his hands. I know I’m not going to get a look-in when
it comes to taking this pen because he wants it badly and everyone’s willing him on to score, like it’s payback time. It feels like the whole of Old Trafford is wishing the ball into the net, but as I watch, Ruud doesn’t seem to be setting himself up right. I’ve seen him practising pens in training every day and he always goes the same way. He hits his shot hard and the keeper usually has no chance. When he steps up to the spot this time, he changes his usual direction and strikes the ball poorly. Straightaway I know that if Arsenal’s goalie, Jens Lehmann, guesses right he’s going to save the shot because there’s not enough pace on it.

I think he’s fluffed it.

Ruud’s ’mare is going to get even worse. Everything seems to stop still. But then Lehmann reads it wrong. He throws himself in the opposite direction and as Ruud’s shot hits the back of the net the whole place erupts and he’s off, running to the fans. He’s not looking to his teammates or the bench or The Manager, but I can see there’s joy and relief all over his face. It’s probably the most genuine emotion I’ve ever seen in a footballer after scoring – it’s like Ruud has had the weight of the world lifted off his shoulders.

I chase after him as he runs to the corner flag and drops to his knees, head back. He’s screaming, his fists are clenched. I think of Stuart Pearce when he scored for England against Spain in Euro 96 during a penalty shootout in the quarter-finals. He went mental, the memory of one blobbed penalty against West Germany in the 1990 World Cup semis wiped off with a single kick of the ball.

Now it’s the same for Ruud.

It’s pure emotion.

I want to celebrate too, but I can see by the way he’s looking up at the sky, soaking up the huge Old Trafford roar, that he needs this moment to himself. Fair play to him, he deserves it.

The Arsenal lot look absolutely gutted, and now we’re a goal to the good I know we’ll stop them from getting that 50th undefeated result. The thought of it pushes the team on for the last 15 minutes and we defend strongly while pressing for a second on the break. Then in the 90th minute I put the final nail into Arsenal’s coffin.

Our midfielder, Alan Smith – Yorkshire lad, bleached blond hair – gets the ball out wide; I make a run into the box when his pass comes over. As I leg it for the ball an Arsenal defender starts kicking at my heels. It’s Lauren, he’s trying to trip me, but I’m not going down. I want my first league goal for United so badly that I manage to keep my balance. It leaves me with a tap-in to score.

Ta, very much. 2–0.

My first Premier League strike for United.

‘Happy birthday to me.’

*****

When the final whistle blows shortly afterwards, I walk to the dressing room and strip off my kit. There’s only a few of us in here, everyone else is still coming down the tunnel. My shirt and shorts are off, my socks around my ankles. I’m thinking about getting a shower when all of a sudden I hear
shouting, loads of it. I look out of the door and our lot are going toe to toe with Arsenal’s players, pushing, shoving, everyone getting in one another’s faces. It’s all scrappy stuff, no one’s lamping anyone, it just looks like one of those mass brawls that sometimes kick off in a game of football. It’s handbags stuff.

Arsenal obviously can’t handle it. They don’t like the unbeaten run coming to an end, especially at Old Trafford, and especially with all the history between the two teams. I think the fact that Ruud has scored today hacks them off even more.

After a few moments, everything calms down and the lads get back to the dressing room to soak up the victory again. But then The Manager walks in. He looks shocked. He’s wearing a different top to the one he had on during the game, which is weird.

One of our lads says, ‘Somebody threw a pizza at The Manager.’

I look at him. We’ve won, but he’s not walking around, shaking everyone by the hand like he usually does. He seems unsettled, which is something I thought I’d never see.

Everyone gets back to talking about the game.

We’ve stopped Arsenal from making it to 50 games unbeaten.

We’ve won 2–0; Ruud has scored.

We look at the Premier League table: