Wayne Rooney smiled a little nervously as he surveyed the packed Lancaster Ballroom at London’s Savoy hotel late on Sunday evening. To his left, a Manchester United table included Ed Woodward, the club’s leading official, plus former players Bryan Robson, Louis Saha and Wes Brown. Ahead, his family, agent, former teammates Darren Fletcher, Andy Cole and managers Roy Hodgson and David Moyes.
The Football Writers’ Association dinner had been long planned as a tribute to Rooney, but the timing, coming a day after he became Manchester United’s all-time leading goalscorer with his 250th goal, was perfect. Rooney has scored 320 goals in 741 professional games for Everton, Manchester United and England.
His record is astonishing and as Patrick Barclay, a journalist who spoke at the awards, said: “He’ll only be fully appreciated when he’s retired.”
Barclay praised a man not only for his role in winning so many trophies, but for doing so in such a selfless, team-minded manner. Pointedly, he said that 12 of the players on the pitch in the 2011 Uefa Champions League final deserved medals and one of them did not get one. Rooney’s goal that night against Barcelona was one of his best, but he was in a team outclassed, one of many disappointments in a career full of highs.
Another Scot – Darren Fletcher – described Rooney, a man prepared to put the yards in on the wing while Cristiano Ronaldo took centre stage as United won the 2008 European Cup, as “the ultimate team player”.
Fletcher did concede, though, that he still could not work out how Rooney had such long conversations with Carlos Tevez when he did not speak Spanish and the Argentine did not speak English. He spoke with affection of a player who remains a genuinely popular captain among his United teammates and not only because he pays for most of the players’ nights out, though scalding them on their bare skin in the changing room with a still-hot tea pot is not always appreciated.
Rooney has scored more goals for club and country than Bobby Charlton, the man he overtook for both. Charlton has a statue and Old Trafford’s main stand named after him. Yet while Rooney remains poplar enough for United fans to still sing his name, many do not afford him the same status as other club heroes. They cite his putting two transfer requests in, something Rooney denies.
But his criticisms of United’s shortcomings around the time of the first alleged request, in 2010, were only what most United fans were saying after the club sold Ronaldo and replaced him with Michael Owen and Antonio Valencia in 2009.
The social media age draws instant condemnation and the benefit of hindsight, but every United hero has had a blemish on their record – either on or off the field – at some point. Rooney, 31, is not a saint and has made mistakes, which he has admitted to.
But United fans were also very quick to change their tune in August 2013 when he was linked with a move to Chelsea. At the start of that month you could not find a fan who wanted him to stay. At the end the fans were singing his name after United refused to sell him.
Rooney’s marriage with United has had its moments. He has been one of United’s greatest players in some of their greatest ever teams, a winner of five Premier League titles, two League Cups, one FA Cup, one European Cup and one Club World Cup. He did not reach the heights of his former foil Ronaldo, but who did, apart from Lionel Messi?
Rooney is rightly immensely proud of his achievements.
Critics point to a decline, his more peripheral role at United and that fact that he is extremely well remunerated for being a substitute most matches, but he did not need to donate the entire proceeds of his 2016 testimonial fund to charities for deprived children. And he did not need to stand up and take responsibility for a 94th-minute free-kick at Stoke City on Saturday and curl the ball under the bar to stretch United’s unbeaten run to 17 games.
But he did.
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