I’m about to watch United at Stoke followed by the camel herders hosting Arsenal. Anything can happen, if the recent twists are an indicator. The blue Arabs started calling United “city’s feeder club”, at one point last week. A terrible business best left ignored. Ignore them and they’ll go away, the wisdom says. I have a disgusting feeling in the pit of my arsehole that tells me this time they won’t. When an overrated superstar claims he wants to leave United ‘cos the Glazers are too tight, certain ears prick up like a desert predator. It’s been a time of strange news, this. Rooney to Eastlands? United to “hunt” Torres? Christ, I thought Norman Wisdom dying was bad enough, but the absurdity of this thing is soap opera standard.
When I heard about Norman Wisdom, I was reading the Evening News on my mam’s laptop. She doesn’t know a Hewlett Packard from a pangolin but what can yer do? With heavy heart I plugged the headphones into my shrek-likes and played The Human League’s “The Things That Dreams are Made Of” on YouTube. Electro-drums on a pitch-black field of silence and a fat pinpoint synth. Why was I listening to 80s claptrap when a British icon, a man of the (laughing-so-hard-you’re-touching-) cloth had just passed away? Those of you in the know (that’s right, pie-face, I said “in the know”) will understand the significance. The rest will just have to simmer like choirboys with an advanced case of collective haemorrhoids. Bad gear the piles, innit? I was once advised, “Dab, don’t wipe”, upon developing a major conflagration on the eve of my return flight to America. That was 1996, the ecstasy 15 times stronger than it is today. People very ill in pubs. Accidents did happen. I flew back via Amsterdam. Must have looked a picture, shoving something up my arse in a cubicle in Schiphol Airport, assuming they have hidden cameras in the shithouses there. I was following advice to stuff ‘em back in each time I got chance. But I digress. Actually, I don’t. We’re on the subject of arse and piles and drugs and stuffing things up your arse after taking piles of drugs. I discovered on this recent Manchester visit that in the 15 years since then neither I nor Manchester have changed. I predictably got mullered and went AWOL. Fortunately minus Emma Freuds. Our flight home was devoted to controlling a bored one-year old daughter. Much better than shifting about like Paul Stretford in the transfer window.
Which brings me to the inevitable discussion. The wonderful Mr. Stretford, guardian of the potato-faced creature they call “the White Pele”. Who’d a thunk good old Stretty would almost emerge as a working-class hero? Don’t for one minute think that every word of Moonhead’s “statements” weren’t masterminded by Stretteh. That man…that HERO, nearly achieved something nobody’s managed these past 5 years; he brought the superstar spotlight onto the leeches draining the lifeblood out of Manchester United, by threatening to sacrifice the Golden Goose. Well, gold-plated, anyway. With stainless steel peeping through the distressed exterior. Definitely not a polished turd though. He has his shining months.
Fact is, I’m gonna miss Norman Wisdom more than I’d have missed Rooney. Norman made me piss myself. Rooney just pisses me off. Always in the ref’s face. Blowing hot and cold. Such roller-coaster form is unsettling. Many people claim Roon’s as good as Ronaldo or Messi. He isn’t in the same class. But people think he is, especially after last season. He’s now a global brand, one of many to appear since Becks shown ‘em the way.
Rooney was on fire last season, before being nobbled. People were angry; they’d had their Champions League and Premiership Title snatched away by a bad tackle, or plain bad luck. Our end of season belly-flop proved how good Rooney was, in the eyes of most – and how shite United actually were. It was “Messi, Ronaldo, Kaka and Rooney” from commentators here in the States, all World Cup. The scouse lad had become a cardinal direction in global soccer marketing. In truth, Diego Forlan ate the lot of ‘em for breakfast. But it didn’t prevent Stretford from putting Rooney head and shoulders above them all with his sweet nothings last week. Suddenly, the money-grabbing Scouser was a man who stands up for what we, the commoners, believe. And still the supposed anti-Glazer wallahs found fault in Rooney’s patter, as they did with Beckham last season over the G&G scarf. Even the United board believed it, hence the ₤2.3 million injection into Moonhead’s back bin. Some fucking pay-rise, that is. Are those scores of empty seats at the Euro tie against Bursaspor poised to multiply as this season progresses and the oasis dries up? Will the silver glittering at the far end of next spring evaporate as new competitors race for the prizes, and the rats – sorry, heroes – desert the sinking galleon? Rats? Rooney’s shit ‘em. The Croxteth lad said in August 2009 he loved United and would stay for as long as they wanted him. Last week’s claim, that the cash flow has become a trickle, never implied United didn’t want him. There were some people who insisted that Fergie had pushed Rooney out, engineered bad feeling so they could flog him and divvy up the proceeds. Personally, I think it went deeper than that. I think Ferg was secretly pissing himself, like I did while watching Norman Wisdom as a lad. Rooney is a bit overrated but he is very famous, and this is the source of the frustration. I’ll bet the way Sir Alex vented his gizzard at the media wasn’t in Roon’s itinerary. Question is, was Stretford’s “response” in it either? SAF was laughing up his monogrammed shirt sleeve at the gob on the scouse rebel and his brooding ventriloquips. Would a top agent jeopardise his relationship with a club the stature of United just for the sake of that truth? It was a mess; no black and white, just a big grey elephant in the room, a ₤1.1bn price tag hanging off its ear, writ large in red. I can see Rooney now, flush-faced with money/power/glory lust, bellowing, “Truth?! You can’t handle the truth!” at Gilgamesh, as Fergie titters inwardly, weighing up his cut, while Stretford salivates like a Pavlovian dog in a doorbell factory. Oh to have been a bluebottle on the wall at that meeting. The amount of shit being launched about would have done you for life. People are funny. They mellow as they age, yet become more conservative. They don’t actually change; the points of resistance just rearrange themselves. Ferguson has left his trade unionist principles behind yet those old crags have grown more human. The precocious youngster in royal blue became the angry man in red. Ferg and Rooney come from similar backgrounds, but one is somewhat ahead of the other in the maturing department. It is only natural that these volcanic personalities should fall out. The funny part was Rooney telling United to shove it. If he’d stuck to his story he would’ve been the first United player to properly demonstrate the Glazer effect. He’s now the only one to properly speak out against them. And how.
You can’t have it both ways. You can’t slag players off for saying nowt and then slag them off for actually doing something. Even if it’s all a pile of elephant – or camel – shit. Something made Wayne Rooney say he wants to leave Old Trafford, or at least claim to. And now he remains a United player, one who finally said something about the current state of affairs. His reward suggests that we really do have that 80 mill on tap. Then again, 2.3 goes into 80 nearly 35 times. Add all other outlay since we received the 80 and where are you? I’m asking because I can’t be arsed researching it all, ‘cos I’m leathered on AK-47, listening to Human League again; first song I ever heard with my own headphones, that. It’s at times like this I wish I was at least partly straight enough to read that andersred blog. Fuck it, I’m goin’ in.
Alright, I’m back. The 80 million was 53% of the overall closing financial balance for that year. So let’s say we made 155 million total for just that year. We’ve shelled out nearly 32 million on player business since then, so we should have the 80 left, just washing around in a kitchen drawer somewhere, or maybe stuffed inside a cleaned out jam jar on a shelf in the cupboard. Does Stretford know where it is? Is he in cahoots with Fergie? Maybe they’re saving it for when Mourhino brings Ronaldo back…
During those uncertain days these speculations buzzed about like big fat bluebottles: Rooney and Benzema in a loan-swap between us and Madrid; Rooney to Bayern, the very team that chopped his dreams apart towards the end of last season, then chopped him again for good measure in the return leg at OT; Rooney to Stamford Bridge, to play nice with Terry and Lampard; Rooney to Eastlands to join Tevez in a caveman spearhead. I highly doubt a mentally more robust scouse version of Paul Gascoigne really wants to live abroad, unless abroad means That London. Chelsea would have alienated him as much as Barcelona, though, for different reasons. Which leaves our noisy neighbours from the desert. It was a case of “My cousin’s best mate’s window-cleaner’s sister’s goin’ out with a player from Macclesfield Town whose dad works at city’s accounting firm. They dropped 70 million on Rooney this week. Deals been done for months!” Nudge, wink, taps nose. Rooney signing a new contract with United was another possibility. Funny one, that, but you didn’t write it off, did you?
Will Rooney’s form now improve – that is the question. And how will the other players respond to this gigantic wedge he earns? What would Norman Wisdom say? Hang on; Chichen Itza, as my wife calls him, has just bailed us out at Stoke. I wonder how much he gets paid..?
Tags: ecstasy, football, Manchester, Paul Stretford, Salford, Wayne Rooney