Wayne Rooney by Wayne Rooney

Author:Wayne Rooney [Wayne Rooney and Hunter Davies]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780007280735
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2006-06-14T23:00:00+00:00

I had a fairly poor disciplinary record that season – seventeen yellow cards in all. Against Bolton on Boxing Day, I was fouled by Tal Ben-Haim who also gave me a mouthful, so I gave him a push. He went down like a bag of shite, as if I’d knocked him for six with an uppercut. I wasn’t sent off at the time, but I received a suspension afterwards when the video evidence was studied.

Then, in an England friendly against Spain, Sven took me off before half-time – apparently to save me from myself before I was sent off. I wasn’t pleased – I knew I would be coming off at half-time anyway, as that had been the plan, so I thought he could have left me on until then.

Spain had been taking the mickey, passing the ball back and forth, and showboating which upset me. When that happens, you have to try and break up your opponents’ passing game by getting stuck into them, tackling hard and quickly. Perhaps I overdid it because I was so frustrated, but we couldn’t get a kick of the ball. Not nice.

I like to think that today I’ve calmed down a bit. I’m still likely to get a yellow card for a mistimed tackle, which can happen to anyone, or for going in a bit too hard. But I’ve put a stop to offences like dissent and kicking the ball away, those really stupid things for which I used to get a yellow card. It was daft, getting suspended for three games just for arguing with the ref.

Losing my temper, though, well I’m sure that will still happen. All players do that at some time. In the heat of the game, you can get carried away and swear and shout, which is something I rarely do off the pitch and never did at home as my mother would have slapped me. But it’s like being at work on a building site or whatever, it’s the language that’s used.

Now, because of who I am these days, TV cameras will often show a close-up of me swearing, which they don’t do so much to the other players. It’s given me a reputation for effing and blinding on the pitch more than most, which I don’t think is fair.

In that first season, I was carrying on with Roy Keane, even though I had just arrived in the team. If I had made a mistake he’d give me a mouthful, which I expected him, as the captain, to do, but I would also give him a mouthful back if I thought he hadn’t played the right ball. Afterwards in the dressing room, though, it’s all forgotten.

I thought personally that I had a good first season, but it wasn’t really so good for the team, not when Manchester Utd set such high standards.

In the 2004/05 European Champions League, we got through from our group into the last sixteen, but were then beaten 2–0 by AC Milan over two legs.

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