Wayne Rooney: My Decade in the Premier League Read Online Free PDF Page A

in the same way as I talk to defenders and teammates. I don’t tell them to ‘eff off’ if things don’t go my way. I don’t turn the computer off if I’m watching my pals play. Losing it only happens when I’mcompeting. And only if I lose. It’s not something I’m proud of, but it’s something I’ve had to live with. I obviously have two very different mindsets: one that drives me on in the thick of a game and another I live my life by. The two never cross over.
    1 John Donnelly, if you’re wondering, is now a professional boxer, a super flyweight. I spent a lot of time thinking about becoming a pro fighter too, but in the end I went for football.

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