Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League (26 page)

Convince them to forgive you.

*****

Through all the grief and the negative headlines, I’ve got to keep calm. United are still in the box seat to win the title and City have fallen away. If we get at least a point against Blackburn in the second to last game of the season, we can wrap up the title.

But just like the game against West Ham, we make tricky work of it. Our play is nervous, edgy. Blackburn go a goal up after 20 minutes and as the second half slips away, the season looks like going to the final day – a home game against Blackpool, who will probably need to win to have a chance of staying up.

Then with just over a quarter of an hour to go, Javier Hernandez, our Mexican centre-forward, gets upended in the box and all hell breaks loose. Ever since signing for the club in the summer, he’s been a livewire. He’s always on the move and defenders find it very difficult to track him in the box. This time Blackburn’s keeper, Paul Robinson, hauls him down.

The ref blows the whistle, but nobody really knows what’s going on, we’re not sure if he’s given a pen or a goal-kick. Our players are crowding around him; the Blackburn players are crowding around him. They’re arguing that the ball had gone out of play before Hernandez was fouled. I don’t know what he’s going to do but I’m not getting involved.

If he gives it, I don’t want to be fired up. I want to be composed, calm. I need to keep my head.

I stand in the penalty area alone and wait for him to decide.

It feels like forever before he makes a call. There’s another whistle. The Blackburn players are still arguing, our lot are celebrating. He’s pointing to the spot.

Penalty.

You’re on.

Ball down.

Now I’m bricking it. There’s so much riding on this one kick. It’s much worse than the one against West Ham. In fact, I can’t remember a time where I’ve been this nervous on a football pitch before.
If I score, we’ll have 17 minutes to see the game out and win the league. Go through your routine, Wayne. The same as always …

I look at the ball.

Forget Arsenal.

I look straight at the keeper.

Remember Rangers. Remember West Ham.

I look at the ref.

Once I hear the whistle, I go, head down, and make as sweet a strike as I can.

I keep my nerve and put the ball away. This time, as I celebrate, my mind going blank, I keep my emotions under control. I know we only need a point to win the title. I also know that Blackburn need a point to avoid relegation. With the game tied and everybody happy, nobody’s going to do anything silly now. No one’s going to push for a winner or take any risks at the back. It’s over.

Glory.

When the whistle goes and the players begin to celebrate in the dressing room, one of the coaches shows me some footage on his phone. A fan has posted a video on YouTube. It’s a clip of the United supporters in the away end at Blackburn and they’re watching as I step up to take the equalising penalty. Except they’re not watching; all of them have turned their backs. Some of them are crouching down with their heads in their hands, scared of what might go wrong, like they’re watching an entire season flashing before their eyes.

‘They look terrified!’ someone shouts, looking over my shoulder.

You should have been in my boots, pal.

Then the size of what United have achieved sinks in.
19 league titles
.

That’s one more than Liverpool, and as an Evertonian and a United fan it feels mad, satisfying, because it shows what a massive club United are and how much desire we have. It proves how successful The Manager is.

That night, I think about how I want to mark our historic title. I decide on something temporary: I get a pair of scissors and a razor and start shaving into the hair on my chest, shaping it into a reminder for all the United and Liverpool supporters. Then I take a picture of myself and stick it on the social network Twitter. The message is simple:

19

Have that.

*****

When the Champions League is done and dusted, after we’ve cruised through the group stages and knocked out Marseille, Chelsea and Schalke; after we’ve been beaten by one of the greatest club sides of all time in the final at Wembley (the same story as last time: passmovepassmovepassmove), a mate asks me over a game of Xbox one day, ‘Would you have won two more Champions Leagues if it wasn’t for Barça?’

It’s a tough question.

The answer?

‘Maybe. But things happen for a reason. They were better than us both times we met them in the final. It just means we have to raise our game against them next time. Watching Messi is mad, though. I see the things he does with a football and I think,
How’s he done that?
The tricks he can magic up are incredible.’

Then he asks me how good I think Messi is, you know, compared to the greats like Maradona, Pele, Best …

‘I reckon players get appreciated more when they finish, more than when they’re actually playing. But the thing with Messi is that we’re watching him now and realising that there’s something special happening. Only he can do what he does.’

Doesn’t make losing any easier though, does it, Wazza?

‘No, I hate losing to them as much as I hate losing to anyone.
Hate it.
The thing is we started off well in the final at Wembley, but then they got a goal. That’s when I thought,
Oh, here we go again.
I managed to get an equaliser just before half-time, a cracking strike, but it wasn’t enough. In the second half they came out and they were just too good for us. It’s tough to take, but they’re probably the best club side ever.’

We don’t talk about that game again.

The truth is, at the end of the 2010/11 season, despite the Premier League winners’ medal and a record 19th league title for my club, there’s only one thought going around my head.
I’m so glad it’s over.

Sometimes the biggest changes at a football club can take place in the summer, when there’s actually no footy going on. Players come and go; managers come and go. Teams get better (or worse) without anyone kicking a ball about. I can leave Old Trafford for my hols and when I get back everything’s changed.

It’s never drastic though. Whenever somebody leaves United, the rhythm of football stays the same. The lads just get on with the playing side, The Manager concentrates on picking the team.
It’s business as usual.
We’re used to squads being chopped about and new faces showing up. I’ve learned not to be surprised if anyone leaves. Well, anyone apart from The Manager. I can’t imagine him being anywhere but United. I was born in 1985 and he took over
the dugout a year later. I haven’t known Manchester United without him.

Some changes, when they happen, are stranger than others, though. Like Paul Scholes and Gary Nev retiring – Gary in February 2011, Scholesy after the 2010/11 season. Those two have been at the club for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I cheered for them both as they turned out for England in the 1998 World Cup and I used to dream of battling against them in an Everton shirt. I can even remember them playing for United against Everton in the 1995 FA Cup final at Wembley.

I knew those two couldn’t go on forever, especially Gary. There were games in 2010/11 where he didn’t play that well by his high standards. He felt he had a ’mare against West Brom, he didn’t play well against Stoke. He made a couple of silly mistakes and I could tell his head was done in by that a bit. Gaz is a proud person, he doesn’t want to let himself or United down. After those matches, he must have known the end was coming, that he wasn’t good enough for another full season in the first team, so he took the decision out of The Manager’s hands and announced his retirement. In a way, he made it easier for the people around him. Typical Gaz, that.

Scholesy’s different though, I never saw that one coming at all. He was class on the pitch whenever he played. He calmed the midfield if we were under pressure; there were games where we could have given away silly passes or chucked long balls forward out of panic or desperation. Instead he helped us to retake control in tricky matches. He
allowed us to dominate teams and picked out game-changing passes.

I suppose there were a few games when he seemed a little off the pace, but most of the time Scholesy’s impact was dead important. We looked a more composed unit with him in the side and I always reckoned he was the complete midfielder – he could pass the ball, shoot, control the tempo of the game; he had the lot. After his announcement The Manager tells the squad that he’ll be working as a coach at United, which is a loss for us on the pitch, but I couldn’t think of a better person for the younger lads to learn from.

It’s funny, I’ll probably notice Gary’s disappearance from the dressing room much more than Scholesy’s, or Edwin van der Sar who’s also hung up his boots. Gaz was always a noisy so-and-so in and around the place – having a laugh, making jokes, singing. Paul was the opposite. He was quiet. He just got on with his job. During the week he would come in and train, and as soon as the final whistle had blown in the last practice match, he was in the car and off home. He would have showered and changed before any of us could catch breath.

There’s one plus point about Scholesy’s retirement, though – it’s the fact that I can now breathe a bit easier in training. He was like a terrier in practice games. He would always snap at my ankles whenever I was on the ball, like he did with all the lads; he’s always been competitive in the five-a-side games we’ve had at Carrington and he took that spirit into Premier League matches too, especially when a midfield battle needed winning, or when there was a chance
that the other lot might break away and score. He dived into tackles because he was always desperate to win. It was second nature.

I reckon I’m not the only one breathing a sigh of relief as pre-season gets under way though. At the start of our first training session, as the lads get their kit together, I notice that Patrice isn’t wearing his shinnies for practice games anymore.

The one player who is still doing it week in, week out, though, is Giggsy. The 2010/11 campaign was a phenomenal season for him, he was top class. He made chances out of nothing, he skinned defenders and worked up and down the flanks like he was a 22-year-old again. In the dressing room, one of the lads tells him he’s like Peter Pan because he never seems to get any older. The thing is, he deserves to be playing at the top level at his age because he works really hard to keep fit – he’s always pushing himself, stretching, doing yoga to prolong his career. All of us can see Giggsy’s desire in training. It’s inspirational at times.

Scholes, Gary Nev, Giggsy: I’ve learned a lot off those three lads during my time here, probably without even knowing it. I’ve watched some of the things they do in training – their movement, their fitness regimes, the way they prepare themselves; the way they are, their composure in matches – and it’s influenced my own game. I’ve learnt from them in probably the same way that Kai has picked up different mannerisms from me and Coleen whenever we fuss over him, or if we’re playing around the house as a family – the faces we pull, the way we laugh. It happens
naturally, it’s a positive influence. So I can understand why The Manager still wants players like Scholesy around the place. They’re important to the group, especially the younger lads – the babies of the club. They’re examples of what a player has to do to survive in the modern game.