View from the Blue
Columnist: Lyndon Lloyd

Wayne Rooney: Ready to turn his back on his boyhood club

And so here we are; Wayne Rooney is on the verge of leaving Goodison Park. It was inevitable, although there can't be many Evertonians who thought the greatest home-grown prospect in many generations would be walking out the door quite so soon. January at the very earliest; never at the most utopian.

When he fractured the metatarsal bone in his foot during Euro 2004 — the tournament that effectively wrenched the 18 year-old from the possessive arms of the Everton faithful and thrust him into the global spotlight — it looked to have been a blessing in disguise. Most of us believed, naively, that his injury and the fact that the resultant recovery time would put him out of commission until well into the 2004/05 season would put paid to the incessant rumours and the media obsession with this Blue-born son.

That belief, however, didn't factor in the Stretford plan, one that many in the online Everton community have tracked every step of the way but have been utterly powerless to derail. The conspiracy theory that Oliver Kay raised in The Times this week may have proved to be a little more convoluted than the reality (or may indeed prove to be jarringly accurate; who would be surprised?), but as the Newcastle United hierarchy feigns innocence and ProActive laugh off the insinuation, Manchester United's entry into the race to sign "The Boy" signals that the final pieces are falling into place.

Wayne Rooney was once Everton's best-kept secret. The ripples of excitement spread through the Blue faithful over the months as his exploits for the youth team became more widely known, most notably with that goal against Tottenham in the FA Youth Cup and the near-record breaking goals haul in the same competition. By the time he was 16, the management at Goodison could hold him back no longer and in the 2002/03 season, the Wayne Rooney phenomenon burst onto the national scene with a goal that was as dramatic in its execution as it was in its timing. "Remember the name!" Clive Tyldesley squealed. If they hadn't, Euro 2004 put paid to that.

By the time he'd knocked in his fourth goal for England in Portugal, we had lost him, but the seeds were sown the day he got into bed with ProActive and Paul Stretford, the man whose name has become synonymous with Satan in the minds of Evertonians. Wayne was no doubt encouraged by ProActive shareholder Michael Dunford, or ProActive client Kevin Campbell but the moment he appointed Stretford as his "advisor" was the moment David Moyes's steadying influence was removed.

Anyone who has been following the well-orchestrated strategy won't need reminding of the timeline, but here it is in all its damning glory:

The outlandish 18th birthday party, which was staged, complete with celebrity guest-list, against the advice and wishes of his manager. From it came the first serving for the slavering media: the brawl that supposedly broke out involving certain members of the Rooney clan. Who knows how much, if any of it, was true. Did it matter? Divide and conquer.

The club-versus-country row in which Sven-Goran Eriksson won despite the best efforts of Moyes, no doubt to the delight of Stretford. Divide and conquer.

The week-long serial in The Sun after the European Championships in which everything from proposals in BP garage forecourts to his England joy was lovingly recounted but the name Everton wasn't mentioned once. Why would Wayne's trusted advisors counsel him to join the payroll of the most vitriolically despised newspaper by the people of Merseyside? Divide and conquer.

The revelations of his sexual exploits with prostitutes, just one at first, and when that wasn't enough to wreck his engagement, the stories became more lurid and more plentiful, culminating, of course, in The Sunday Mirror expose this past weekend. Why have these past indiscretions surfaced now, at a time when Wayne is adjusting to life on his own away from the family nest and when his personal life hangs in the balance? Divide and conquer.

The total lack of any public response to Everton's massive contract offer, one that would circumvent the club's new wage barrier, drawn up especially for him. Who would advise one of Everton's most famous sons to not give even the slightest indication of his desire to stay with his boyhood club. Surely that would slowly turn the fans away from their new idol and — surprise, surprise — make his departure that bit more palatable. Divide and conquer.

The apparent insinuation to Wayne that the club would prefer to sell him. Who would attempt to sow that thought in his head just at the time when Everton are on the verge of securing a £20m rescue package that would make their chances of keeping their star player better than they have ever been? Divide and conquer.

So, here we stand with Wayne apparently convinced Everton would rather have the cash from his sale than retain his talent in their team; no doubt believing that the fans want him to leave even if he came out and said he wanted to stay; and sure that he needs to move to a bigger club than Everton even though he is only 18 and at the beginning of a promising career.

The trouble is, no one knows what Wayne is really thinking, what he really wants and in whom he really trusts because his advisors, the company with whom he entrusted his future, have throttled his public voice. But while that is a reason to explain his refusal to make his future plans known to the supporters, it is no longer an excuse. If Wayne is old enough and mature enough to vote, to fight for his country, to make midnight visits to "massage parlours" and to eclipse to a man the entire England squad, then he is old enough and mature enough to have the respect for the fans who have taken them to their hearts and tell us straight — once and for all — what it is that he thinks, what he wants, and where he wants to play.

That probably won't happen and Wayne may live to regret it. He may get what he thinks is a dream move to Old Trafford where he can make a fresh start and escape the scrutiny of the spotlight on Merseyside. But the media glare will be even brighter at somewhere like Manchester United and the better he plays, the more intrusive it will become. Ever since he swept that ball past David Seaman and emerged as a potential national hero, only two paths have lain before young Wayne: the path to greatness and the path to destruction. Away from the bosom of his family, both his blood relatives and his extended brethren in the Everton fold, the latter path becomes all too likely a destination.

Everton Football Club can, thankfully, profit whether he stays or goes this week. If he somehow reverses the tide that his sweeping him out the gates of Goodison and elects to sign the five-year contract that has been on the table for six weeks, David Moyes and his team will benefit from his precocious talent.

If, however, he is sold for anything above £25m — one would hope his one last honourable act would be to at least hand in a written transfer request — the impact that that financial shot in the arm will have is hard to underestimate, irrespective of what happens with the Fortress Sports Fund investment bid. Everton and it supporters will move on but will always wonder what might have been had a naive 17 year-old boy not been stolen from them by the malignant force of a man who never has had — nor never will have — his best interests at heart.

Lyndon Lloyd

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