Читать книгу Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League - Wayne Rooney, Wayne Rooney - Страница 8

Matches are won and lost in the tunnel at Old Trafford, but the one thing I notice when I stand there for the first time as a United player is that it seems to go on for miles and miles. It’s long and dark. The ceilings are low and the players bump into one another as they walk to the pitch, almost shoulder to shoulder, because it’s so narrow and cramped. At the end, over the heads of players, officials and the TV cameramen, past the red canopy that stretches out onto the pitch, I can see the bright green blur of the grass, the floodlights and the crowd and some United fans hanging over the edge of the wall, shouting and waving flags.

It’s September 2004, United against Fenerbahçe. I’m about to make my first-team debut in the Champions League, a competition I’ve always dreamt of playing in.

The noise is mad, a buzz of 67,128 people, like a loud hum. When I first played here against United for Everton that buzz weighed me down a bit. It felt claustrophobic, it felt like a cup final. It did my head in. Now it pumps me up, but I can see why some players might feel trapped in here. Standing in the Old Trafford tunnel is like being in a box. If a footballer hasn’t been here before and they’re lined up next to the United players for the first time, it’s a terrifying moment. The weight of expectation is huge. A player has to be able to handle it if they’re going to be able to play well in front of the crowd here.

The Manager knows all about the importance of this place. The atmosphere is such a big deal that he even makes it his business to find out which players from the opposition have faced us here before and which ones haven’t. He tells us before a game; he knows who’s frightened and he wants us to know, too. Sometimes, as we get ready he lists names from the other lot, the lads playing here for the first time – they’re the ones who might not be on their game.

Later in the season I see it for myself. In some teams, the newly promoted ones usually, the players look scared as they start their walk to the pitch. Others look as if they’re starting their big day out for the season, or even their career. I can tell that they want to make the most of it, that they want to soak up the occasion. They clock their families in the stands and smile and wave like it’s their biggest ever achievement. As they make the slow walk from the tunnel in the corner of the ground to the halfway line they’re thinking one thing: Bloody hell, this is Old Trafford. Good news for us: the distraction can stop them from thieving a point. Bad news for them: they’re 1–0 down psychologically.

Now I’m about to make my first walk from the tunnel in a United shirt.

Today it’s all about my signing, my first game. I’ve been at the club nearly two months, but I haven’t played a minute of first team football after I busted a bone in my foot at Euro 2004, which has been annoying for everyone because I cost the club a lot of money. Still, the fans have been sound. I see them on the box and they’re saying how excited they are to see me here, but the one worry at the back of my mind is that it might take a while for them to accept me because I’m a Scouser. I might have to do something really special to win them over.

They’re on my side tonight, though. The crowd are singing my name before I even get onto the pitch.

‘Rooney!’

‘Rooney!’

‘Roooooooo-neeeeee!’

The shivers run down my spine as I walk into the glare of the floodlights for the first time in a red shirt. I’m bricking it.

It makes me laugh whenever I watch the tape of that game now: I come out of the tunnel with a chewy in my mouth and my eyes don’t seem to move as I walk across the grass. I don’t even blink. I stare straight ahead, trying to focus. The camera catches me puffing my chest out, getting myself ready, staring at the sky above the massive stand in front of me. I don’t look at anything in particular, just a space above that huge wall of people which seems to stretch up forever, full of red and black and white and some yellow and green.

I want to soak up the noise.

I don’t want to turn round.

I don’t want to see how massive everything looks.

Bloody hell, this is Old Trafford.

*****

Everything had been so quiet and calm before.

I sat in the dressing room ahead of the game and watched as everybody prepared themselves. I saw some of the biggest names in the league getting ready: winger Ryan Giggs stretching his skinny frame, Gary Neville bouncing on the spot; Dutch striker Ruud van Nistelrooy and Rio Ferdinand playing two touch with a ball, their passes pinging off the concrete floor. It was totally different to the atmosphere at Everton.

At Goodison it was rowdy and loud, people shouted, yelled, issued instructions. It dawned on me that some teams have to win games through team spirit; they have to fight harder for one another. Pumping up the dressing room builds a strong attitude. It helps to psyche out the opposition. Before the Fenerbahçe game I noticed that everyone in a United shirt prepared in their own way – calmly, quietly. No one screamed or shouted. They knew that if we played well we’d win the game no problem. There was no need to scream and shout.

I felt like I’d come to the right place.

*****

I make a good early pass. Well, I take the kick-off so I can’t really mess that one up. My first proper touch comes a few moments later and I play that one well, too. I’m running on pure adrenaline.

I want to impress everyone. I want to show them what I can do.

Then, in the 17th minute I score my first-ever United goal.

Ruud plays me through. I’m one-on-one with the goalie and everything slows down – the weirdest feeling in football. It seems to take an hour before I get to the penalty area, as if I’m running in really thick mud. My brain goes into overdrive like it always does in this situation, as if it’s a computer working out all the sums needed to score a goal.

Is the keeper off his line?

Is a defender closing in on me?

Should I take it round the goalie?

Should I shoot early?

Will I look a divvy if I try to ’meg him and I hit the ball wide?

A one-on-one like this is probably the hardest thing to pull off in a game because there’s too much time to process all the info, too much time to think. Too much time to overcomplicate what should be an easy job.

I’m just going to put my foot through it, see what happens.

I hit the ball with all my strength and it rockets into the back of the net. Old Trafford goes nuts. Right now I doubt anyone cares whether I’m a Scouser or not, I’m off the mark. Mentally I loosen up, I feel like I can express myself a little bit, try a few things. Not long afterwards, Ryan Giggs plays a ball across to me. I drop a shoulder, do my defender and fire the ball into the bottom corner. Now the crowd are singing my name again; now I’m daring to dream.

What would it be like to score a hat-trick at Old Trafford?

I find out in the second half. There’s a free-kick on the edge of the Fenerbahçe area and Giggsy, with all his amazing ability and experience, puts the ball down to take it, but I want it. I’ve got bucketloads of confidence and I fancy my chances, just like I did whenever I got into the ring with a bigger lad in Uncle Richie’s boxing gym. I just know I’m going to score – it’s mad, I can almost sense it’s going to happen.

‘Giggsy, I’m putting this one away.’

He hands the ball over and I curl a shot into the top left-hand corner, easy as you like. Goal number three, a hat-trick on my Old Trafford debut.

We win 6–2 and in the dressing room afterwards everyone seems to be in a state of shock. I don’t think anybody can believe what I’ve just done out there. I can’t get my brain around it either. Rio sits there shaking his head, looking at me like I’ve just landed from outer space. The older lads, like Gary Nev and Giggsy, are thinking the same thing, I can tell, but they’re keeping it in. They’ve probably seen amazing stuff like this loads of times before with players like Eric Cantona and David Beckham, so they stay silent. They probably don’t want to build me up just yet. To them, my hat-trick is part of another day at the office, just like it is to The Manager, who shakes my hand and tells me I’ve made a good start to my United career.

Nobody’s getting carried away.

There isn’t a massive party to enjoy afterwards, no one gets bevvied up or hits the town. Some players I know would be out with their teammates having scored a hat-trick on their debut. Instead, everyone goes home. But not me, I haven’t even got a gaff to go to. Coleen and I are living out of a hotel while we look for a new house, so to celebrate the start of my Old Trafford career we order room service and watch the match highlights on the box, but it all seems so weird.

I feel numb.

I always knew that I was going to experience a massive change in my life by signing for United, but I didn’t expect it to be this big. The strangest thing is, I don’t feel like I’m on the verge of anything special. I don’t feel like a special player. I’ve never felt that way, even as a kid playing for Everton. Tonight as we sit eating our room service tea I feel confident, confident that I have the ability to help United win games and trophies, but I can see that everyone else in the dressing room has the ability to do that, too.

At Old Trafford I’m nothing special; I’m not a standout player. But I reckon I can help United to be a standout team.

*****

Despite my brilliant start, it doesn’t take long for me to get up Roy Keane’s nose.

On the pitch, Roy’s a leader; I can see that from training with him. He yells a lot, he inspires through example, but he rarely dishes out instructions – he’s just really demanding, always telling us to graft harder.

He can be just as demanding off the pitch.

On the night before my first away game against Birmingham City (a 0–0 draw), the squad sits down for tea in the team hotel, a fancy place with a private dining room just for us, complete with plasma screen telly. Roy’s watching the rugby, but the minute he gets up to go to the loo, I swipe the controls and flip the channel so the lads can watch The X Factor on the other side. Then I stuff the remote in my trackie pocket.

When Roy comes back and notices Simon Cowell’s face on the telly, he’s not happy. He starts shouting.

‘Who’s turned it over? Where’s the remote?’

I don’t say a word. Nobody does. Everyone starts looking around the room, trying to avoid his glare.

‘Well, if no one’s watching this, I’ll turn it off.’

Roy walks up to the telly and yanks the plug out of the wall. The lads sit there in silence. There isn’t a sound, apart from the scrape of cutlery on plates. It’s moody.

After dinner we all crash out early, but at around midnight, I get a knock on the door. It’s the club security guard.

‘Alright Wayne,’ he says. ‘Roy’s sent me. He wants to know where the remote controls are.’

I realise it’s Roy’s way of letting on to me that he knows exactly what’s happened. It’s a message.

You’re for it now.

I hand them over and wonder what’s going to happen. But the next day he says nothing about it.

*****

When I first sign for United, I think back to the times I’d watched them winning trophies and league titles on the telly. It happened a lot. I’d see their ex-players being interviewed on Sky Sports News or Football Focus and whenever their names came up on the screen it would always read: ‘Steve Bruce: Premier League Winner’, or ‘Teddy Sheringham: Treble Winner.’

I want that to be me.

Later, when I train at Carrington for the first time, Gary Neville gives me some advice. He says, ‘The thing with this team is, no matter how much you’ve achieved, no matter how many medals you’ve won, you’re never allowed to think that you’ve made it.’

I’m a bit nervous about meeting Gary Neville again. I’d whacked him during that reserve game after all – I worry that he’ll remember it. It doesn’t help that just before my arrival one of the papers runs a story about Gary hating Scousers. Apparently he’s told a reporter, ‘I can’t stand Liverpool, I can’t stand Liverpool people, I can’t stand anything about them.’ I’m a bit worried that me and him won’t get on.

I ask him whether he’s really said it, whether he really hates Scousers. He tells me it’s rubbish – he’d been chatting about the Liverpool side of the ’80s. He’d grown up watching them win trophy after trophy. He hated their team; he wasn’t having a pop at the people in the city, just the club. That’s good enough for me. As an Evertonian I can see his point.

I like Gary straightaway, he’s a funny lad. We warm up together in training by playing keep ball in one of the boxes marked out on the training ground turf. I spoon the ball and give a pass away. From behind me I hear him winding me up. ‘Flippin’ heck, how much did we pay for Wazza?’

At lunch after the practice game, he doesn’t stop talking, he goes on and on and on, but in a nice way. Sometimes when he’s off on one – about music, his guitar playing, football – it’s as if he doesn’t have the time to stop for breath, especially if he’s talking about United. He’s the most passionate player I’ve ever met. He’s hard too, on the pitch and off it. He gets stuck into tackles; in the dressing room I notice that The Manager has a go at Gaz probably more than any of the other players in the team because he can handle it. He isn’t soft like some footballers can be.

When he’s out there playing, he’s the spirit of The Manager. He carries that same ambition to win, that same desire. There’s one game where I sit on the bench with him and he even acts like The Manager. He watches the way our match unfolds and he studies the tactics of the opposition. Then with 20 minutes to go he sends a youth team player out to warm up on the touchlines for a laugh without The Manager knowing. Talk about cheek.

Gary and players like Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs bring a lot of experience to the dressing room. In my first few months at the club there are times when teams who can’t live with us on paper defend for their lives and nearly get away with it, even at Old Trafford. They hassle us and battle for every tackle; they park the team bus in front of their goal every time we win back possession. I get frustrated. I lose my patience and start hitting risky long balls and taking pot shots in a desperate attempt to win the game, but Gary calms me down.

‘Keep trying, Wazza, keep playing. A chance will come.’

Nine times out of ten, he’s right.

I’m not the only one to hear the advice. There’s a young lad called Ronaldo who signed a season earlier from Sporting Lisbon for a cool £12.2 million, and everyone starts talking about how he’s going to be the future of the club alongside me. There’s nothing on him though: he’s a bag of tricks, but he’s skinny. He’s got braces on his teeth, slicked hair and he’s spotty. Ronaldo looks like a boy. It’s hard to believe we’re around the same age.

Wonder how he’s going to turn out?

*****

As I get settled at the club, the size of United amazes me. I watch the news at home and no matter where the cameras are, the Middle East, somewhere in Africa, wherever, there’s always a little kid wearing an old United shirt. At first it freaks me out, but then fame always has done.

The first time I’d heard that fans were going into the Everton club shop for my shirt, it felt weird. It used to confuse me when people wanted my autograph in the street. I was 14 when it happened for the first time, playing a youth team game for Everton. When the final whistle went, a bloke came up to me and asked for my signature.

‘I’m going to keep this because when you grow up it’s going to be worth a lot of money,’ he says.

Seeing myself on the box was even weirder.

I played in both legs of the FA Youth Cup final in 2002 against Aston Villa and picked up the Man of the Match award afterwards, even though we lost. Sky interviewed me for the show after one game and I watched it back when I got home because my mum had videoed it. I hated it when I saw the clip: it didn’t look like me, it didn’t sound like me. It was weird.

At United I realise straightaway that the attention is much more intense and the players are treated like rock stars. It’s scary because the team has fans everywhere and people recognise me wherever I go. In the street, blokes, mums and kids come up to me for autographs, and most of the time I’m comfortable with it, but there are moments when it gets too much. I’m only 18 years old; it’s difficult to deal with the attention sometimes.

Every time I go shopping I see a picture of myself in the papers the next day; one night I go out for a meal and people point and stare when I’m sitting with my family. It’s like I’m a waxwork from Madame Tussauds rather than a person. A party of people starts telling the family on the next table that ‘it’s that Wayne Rooney over there’. Then they start pointing and taking pictures with their phones on the sly. In the shops I’m happy to sign stuff, pose for photos and talk to people, but it’s a bit much when I’m eating my tea.

I decide I’m not going to bang on about fame to my mates or moan about it to the lads at the club though, because that’s what so many other footballers do. Signing for United means I have to deal with this situation. It’s part of my job, but I realise I’m growing up fast. I’m learning how to live my life under a mad spotlight.

One afternoon, shortly after the Fenerbahçe game, I go to the garage to fill the car up. As I put the petrol in, a bloke pulls up next to me and winds his window down.

‘Here, Wayne, you fill up your own car yourself, do you?’

Like anyone else is going to do it.