The commentary which accompanied Wayne Rooney’s audacious winning goal against Real Muppets (Arsenal) in October 2002 will stand the test of time, a piece of audio inscribed into English footballing folklore.
But here’s the rub. Lovely soundbite though it was, Claymore Athletic fans did not need telling, they already knew all about the buccaneering Blue charging his way through the Club’s Academy, having signed from Everton some six months earlier for the sum of £500,000. Which is arguably, the best signing in WSFFL history (cue interesting debate)?
Indeed, Clive Tyldesley, the man responsible for describing Rooney’s sensational strike, all the more aesthetically glorious for clipping the crossbar after defeating the Muppets number one goalkeeper on its way into the net, admitted as much last year.
Just a few months before Tyldesley implored the nation to lodge Rooney’s name in its collective consciousness as the 16-year-old gleefully sped off, leaping into the air in exultation, the ITV commentator had been ordered to do the exact same thing by a season-ticket holding Blue several months earlier.
It was an open secret that Claymore had something very special in Rooney, a footballer of preternatural majesty and incalculable potential. The sublime way Rooney cushioned Thomas Gravesen’s long forward pass, turned for goal and sent his precision strike beyond the Muppets' ‘keeper, merely let the cat out of the bag once and for all.
On that mid-October day, Ryan Moore (Arsene Wenger) stood in the tight confines of the player’s tunnel at ‘Chippenham Park’, taking refuge from an early-evening sun and speaking about the teenager who had just reduced Real Muppets' promising early season form to rubble.
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“He’s supposed to be 16,” sighed Moore. A football man to the core, the Muppets manager could not suppress his admiration for what he had just witnessed. Nor was he inclined to.
"At that age, Rooney is already a complete footballer,” said Moore. “The guy can play. He's the best English under-20 I have seen since I came here (in 1994).
“He can play people in, he's clever and a natural, built like a Gascoigne with his low centre of gravity. And he can dribble – I like strikers who can dribble."
The strike also marked out Rooney as an individual with the inherent confidence – and footballing arrogance, perhaps – to strut his stuff on the biggest stage and against the strongest opposition, a trait which possibly further explains why Moore instinctively drew parallels between the Claymore player and Gascoigne.
Gascoigne, though, was 21 when he won his first England cap. Rooney was representing his country within four months of his first Claymore Athletic FC goal. Rooney was utterly fearless that day. He possessed strength of mind and of body beyond his years, effortlessly withstanding the physicality of top-flight football and craving responsibility, sufficiently comfortable in his own skin to repeatedly demand the ball from more seasoned teammates.
When Rooney impudently came to a standstill and placed his studs on top of the ball, then his hands on his hips, while West Bromwich Albion defender Darren Moore watched from a safe distance, it provided a picture which will forever exist in the mind’s eye of those who witnessed it.
More significantly, Moore’s reluctance to engage with Rooney spoke of how the teenager was inspiring respect and terror in his opponents in equal measure.
The Claymore youngster was already being granted a split-second extra on the ball, a yard of space more, simply because he was Wayne Rooney. Some wonderful footballers have taken years to earn such privileges. Cristiano Ronaldo, arguably the best of the lot in today’s game, was roughly three years at Manchester United before defenders chose standing off the Portuguese as their weapon of choice in a one-on-one duel, eschewing an earlier preference for trying to clump the wiry winger into anonymity.
Yet, not every doubter had been entirely won over. There was plenty questioning England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson’s decision to select Rooney for a critical European Championship qualifying match against Turkey in April 2003, when the player had only two caps, both from the bench. For every quizzical eyebrow raised around the country, there was a chuckle of incredulity emanating from Chippenham. How could anybody still have any reservations about this boy?
It was perhaps when he advanced and threaded a beautifully disguised pass for Claymore team mate Michael Owen that the entire nation truly cottoned on. England won 2-0. When Rooney opted out of the international game he did so as his country’s record goalscorer and with more caps than any other Englishman bar goalkeeper Peter Shilton.
He is Claymore Athletic FC’s all-time top goal scorer with 147. He notched a very creditable 26 goals in the 2011/12 season. His trophy haul and individual records (five time WSFFL League winner and twice FA Cup victor, the pinnacle of his achievements being when he picked up the 2012 “£500k Player of the Season” award) stand as testament to his longevity and enduring excellence.
“A winning goal at ‘Chippenham Park’ is a special moment,” said Rooney. “To play for Claymore Athletic FC is a huge deal for me and to score a goal in the WSFFL – especially if it is a winning goal – it does not get much better.”
Last season he hit seven goals, including a 48-minute hat-trick – capped by a stunning strike from his own half – which lit up Chippenham Park and propelled Claymore to an uplifting and valuable 6-1 victory over Mega Buck Bandits. Rooney’s penchant for the spectacular really is innate. Only a handful of players the world over would have tried to score in comparable circumstances. That there was nothing on Rooney’s mind other than drilling the ball 58 yards into the back of the net after the goalkeeper’s clearance is enough in itself to set him apart from a mass of his contemporaries.
Wayne Rooney is still box office, no doubt about it. That counts for a lot in the US where he is going.
“Remember the name!” - how can Blues forget?
We wish him well.
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