inspired some of the greatest players in Premier League history. The man who signed me for the biggest club in the world. The most successful club boss in the modern game.
He walks round to all of us and shakes our hands like he does after every win. It’s been like this since the day I signed for United. Thankfully I’ve had a lot of handshakes.
He lets on to me. ‘That was magnificent, Wayne, that was great.’
I nod; I’m too tired to speak, but I wouldn’t say anything if I could.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing better than The Manager saying well done – but I don’t need it. I know when I’ve played well and when I’ve played badly. I don’t think, If The Manager says I’ve played well, I’ve played well. I know in my heart whether I have or I haven’t.
Then he makes out that it’s the best goal he’s ever seen at Old Trafford. He should know, he’s been around the club long enough and seen plenty of great goalscorers come and go during his time.
The Manager is in charge of everything and he controls the players at Manchester United emotionally and physically. Before the game he reads out the teamsheet and I sometimes get that same weird, nervous feeling I used to get whenever the coach of the school team pinned the starting XI to the noticeboard. During a match, if we’re a goal down but playing well, he tells us to keep going. He knows an equaliser is coming. He talks us into winning. Then again, I’ve known us to be winning by two or three goals at half-time and he’s gone nuts when we’ve sat down in the dressing room.
We’re winning. What’s up with him?
Then I cotton on.
He doesn’t want us to be complacent.
Like most managers he appreciates good football, but he appreciates winners more. His desire to win is greater than in anyone I’ve ever known, and it rubs off on all of us.
The funny thing is, I think we’re quite similar. We both have a massive determination to succeed and that has a lot to do with our upbringing – as kids we were told that if we wanted to do well we’d have to fight for it and graft. That’s the way I was brought up; I think it was the way he was brought up, too. And when we win something, like a Premier League title or the Champions League trophy, we’re stubborn enough to hang onto that success. That’s why we work so hard, so we can be the best for as long as possible.
Everyone begins to push and shove around a small telly in the corner of the room. It’s been sitting there for years and the coaches always turn it on to replay the game whenever there’s been a controversial incident or maybe a penalty shout that hasn’t been given – and there’s been a few of those, as The Manager will probably tell anyone who wants to listen. This time, I want to see my goal. Everyone does.
One of the coaches grabs the controls and forwards the action to the 77th minute.
I see my heavy touch, Scholesy’s pass to Nani.
I see his cross.
Then I watch, like it’s a weird out of body experience, as I throw myself up in the air and thump the ball into the back of the net. It doesn’t seem real.
I reckon all footballers go to bed and dream about scoring great goals: dribbling the ball around six players and popping it over the goalkeeper, or smashing one in from 25 yards. Scoring from a bicycle kick is one I’ve always fantasised about.
I’ve just scored a dream goal in a Manchester derby.
‘Wow,’ says Rio, for the second time, shaking his head.
I know what he means. I sit in the dressing room, still sweating, trying to live in the moment for as long as I can because these moments are so rare. I can still hear the United fans singing outside, giving it to the City lot, and I wonder if I’ll ever score a goal as good as that again.
*****
I’ve played in the Premier League for 10 years now. I’m probably in the middle of my career, which feels weird. The time has flown by so quickly. It does my head in a little, but I still reckon my best years are ahead of me, that there’s plenty more to come. It only seems like five minutes ago that I was making my debut for Everton against Tottenham in August 2002. The Spurs fans were tucked away in one end of Goodison Park. When I ran onto the pitch they started singing at me:
‘Who are ya?’
Whenever I touched the ball:
‘Who are ya?’
They don’t sing that at me anymore. They just boo and chuck abuse and slag me off instead. Funny that.
In the 10 years since my debut, I’ve done a hell of a lot. From 2002 to 2004 I played for Everton, the team I supported as a boy; I became the youngest player to represent England in 2003, before Arsenal’s Theo Walcott had that record off me. In 2004 I signed for Man United for a fee in excess of £25 million and became the club’s highest-ever Premier League goalscorer. During the European Championships that same year, the England players nicknamed me ‘Wazza’; the title seems to have stuck.
I’ve won four Premier League titles, a Champions League, two League Cups, three FA Community Shields and a FIFA Club World Cup. I’ve scored over 200 goals for club and country, and been sent off five times. I’d be lying if I told you that I haven’t loved every minute of it. Well, OK, maybe not the red cards and the suspensions, but everything else has been sound.
The funny thing is, the excitement and adrenaline I felt on the night before my league debut for Everton in 2002 still gets to me. The day before a game, home or away, always feels like Christmas Eve. When I go to bed I’ll wake up two or three times in the night and roll over to look at the alarm clock.
Gutted. It’s only two in the morning.
The buzz and the anticipation are there until the minute we kick off.
I’ve paid the price, though. Physically I’ve taken a bit of a battering over the years; being lumped by Transformer-sized centre-backs or having my muscles smashed by falls, shoulder barges and last-ditch tackles, day in, day out, has left me a bit bruised.
When I get up in the morning after a game, I struggle to walk for the first half an hour. I ache a bit. It wasn’t like that when I was a lad. I remember sometimes when I finished training or playing with Everton and United, I’d want to play some more. There was a small-sided pitch in my garden and I used to play in there with my mates. When I trained with Everton, I used to go for a game down the local leisure centre afterwards, or we used to play in the street in Croxteth, the area of Liverpool where I grew up with my mum, dad and younger brothers Graeme and John. There was a nursery facing my house. When it closed for the day, they’d bring some shutters down which made for a handy goal. I loved playing there. After I’d made my England debut in 2003 I was photographed kicking a ball against that nursery in a France shirt.
Footy has had a massive impact on my body because my game is based on speed and power. Intensity. As a striker I need to work hard all the time; I need to be sharp, which means my fitness has to be right to play well. If it isn’t, it shows. It would probably be different if I were a full-back; I could hide a bit, make fewer runs into the opposition’s half and get away with it. As a centre-forward for Manchester United, there’s no place to hide. I’ve got to work as hard as I can, otherwise The Manager will haul me off the pitch or drop me for the next game. There’s no room for failure or second best at this club.
If there is a downside to my life then it’s the pressure of living in the public eye. I’d like just for one day to have no-one know me at all, to do normal stuff; to be able to go to the shops and not have everyone stare and take pictures. Even just to be able to go for a night out with my mates and not have anyone point at me would be nice. On a weekend, some of my pals go to the betting shop before the matches start and put down a little bet – I’d love to be able to do that. But look, this is the small stuff, I’m grateful for everything that football has given me.
There is one small paranoia: