There are so many people who have helped and worked alongside me to make my Premier League dream become a reality. First and foremost my parents and family have played a massive role in getting me where I am today.

All the coaches and managers I have worked with since being a young lad, my agent Paul Stretford and the people who work alongside him, and all my team mates and friends in and out of the game: thanks for being there. But through working on this book and reflecting on the highs and lows of the last 10 years there are two people who merit specific mention.

To my wife Coleen, thanks for being there through the rough and the smooth; you will never know how much your love and support means to me. To my son Kai, you’re my first thought in the morning and you give me my last smile at the end of the day. I love you both so much, you’re my inspiration and my motivation every single day.

Thanks for everything.
Love,
Wayne (and Daddy) xxx

There were plenty of eyebrows raised when I persuaded Manchester United’s board of directors to sanction a multimillion pound move to try to prise away Wayne Rooney from Everton.

The lad was still only eighteen, but he had already shown in the two years he’d been in Everton’s first team that he was a rare talent.

The Everton backroom staff had done a marvellous job nurturing the youngster through their academy to the day he made his debut for the first team when still some weeks short of his seventeenth birthday.

Long before he made his bow for the senior side everybody in the game was well aware that Everton had unearthed a little gem, and it didn’t take him long to announce his arrival on the big stage.

Everton were Wayne’s club as a schoolboy, so we can only imagine how he felt to pull on that famous royal
blue shirt and run out to the roar of the Goodison Park crowd.

It wasn’t a surprise that he took to first team football with the minimum of fuss. Wayne Rooney was born to play football and it was plain to see from the outset that his future as a major figure in the game was assured.

We were under no illusions that it would take anything other than a very, very large cheque if we were to tempt Everton into agreeing to let Wayne make the short move up the M62.

I suppose everyone has their price and eventually we managed to negotiate a deal with Everton to secure the services of the finest young player of his generation.

There’s no question that it was a gigantic amount of money we paid for a player who hadn’t long been eligible to vote, but we knew what we were doing.

Every so often a player comes along who is a racing certainty to make the grade as a professional, and Wayne Rooney was one of those.

It wasn’t a gamble, it was an investment in the future, and there can be no doubt that the lad from Croxteth proceeded to pay off that outlay numerous times in the years that followed.

If anyone had any lingering doubts regarding our decision then they were almost instantly and conclusively dispelled when he scored a hat-trick on his debut in a Champions League group match against Turkish club Fenerbahçe at Old Trafford. Talk about starting the repayments early!

It wouldn’t have bothered me if he’d taken weeks to score his first goal for us, but I’ve got to say I was overjoyed that he hit the ground running in classic style.

The rivalry between Manchester and Liverpool has been well documented over the years, but here was one Scouser who had immediately become an adopted Mancunian.

That was just the first few lines in a marvellous story that has continued to unfold during his career with Manchester United. He has become one of the mainstays of the club and is generally recognised as one of the finest players of the Premier League and Champions League era.

Wayne has also along the way ironed out the self-discipline problems he had as a youngster. Once looked upon as petulant and always likely to get in hot water with the authorities, he is now a reformed individual who sets the standards for the rest of the team.

It takes strength of character to overcome those types of personal traits, but he dug deep and eradicated what was a counter-productive part of his make-up.

Then there was his little wobble in the autumn of 2010, when he announced that he wanted to up sticks and leave Old Trafford.

I was shocked, and not a little disappointed, but it didn’t take long to set him straight on that little matter and soon enough he was putting pen to paper on an extended contract.

I’m not about to say what was said between us during our discussions at that time, but I knew from the start that his heart was still with Manchester United and that all wasn’t lost as we set about showing him the error of his
thinking. Wayne Rooney has it within his grasp to carve for himself a very special place in the history of Manchester United.

He has already started overtaking long-standing club records, and with age on his side there are no limits to what he can achieve before the time comes for him to call it a day.

I’d like to think I’ve made one or two good decisions during my time in football – and a few I’d rather forget! – but there is no question that the signing of Wayne Rooney from Everton is right up there with the best of them.

Bang!

Everything goes dead mad, dead quick.

Then that feeling kicks in – an unbelievable feeling of satisfaction that I get from scoring a goal in the Premier League. Like the sensation I get whenever I’ve smashed a golf ball flush off the face of the club and watched it trickle onto the green.

It’s a high – a mad rush of power.

It’s a wave of emotion – but it takes me over like nothing else.

This feeling of putting one away for Manchester United is huge, selfish, nuts. I reckon if I could bottle the buzz, I’d be able to make the best energy drink ever.

A heartbeat later and I’m at normal speed again, I’m coming round.

Everything’s in focus: the sound, a roar loud enough to hurt my ears, like a plane taking off; the aching in my legs,
the sweat running down my neck, the mud on my kit. There’s more and more noise; it’s so big, it’s right on top of me. Someone’s grabbing at my shirt, my heart’s banging out of my chest. The crowd are singing my name:

‘Rooney!’

‘Rooooo-neeee!’

And there’s no better feeling in the world.

Then I look up and see the scoreboard.

12 FEBRUARY 2011

United
2
City
1

GOAL!

Rooney, 77 minutes

Who I am and what I’ve done comes back to me in a rush, a hit, like a boxer coming round after a sniff of smelling salts. I’m Wayne Rooney. I’ve played Premier League football since 2002 and I’ve just scored the winning goal in a Manchester derby – probably the most important game of the season to fans from the red half of town. A goal that puts our noisy neighbours, the other lot, in their place. A goal that reminds them that United have more history and more success than they do right now. A goal that warns the rest of the country that we’re on our way to winning another Premier League title.

The best goal of my career.

As I stand with my arms spread wide, head back, I can feel the hate coming from the City fans in the stand behind me, it’s like static electricity. The abuse, the screaming and swearing, is bouncing off me. They’re sticking their fingers up at me, red-faced. They’ve all got a cob on, but I don’t give a toss. I know how much they hate me, how angry they are; I can understand where they’re coming from though, because I go through the same emotions whenever I lose at anything.

This time, they’re wound up and I’m not.

I know it doesn’t get any better than this.

I’ve bagged hundreds of goals during my time in the Premier League with United and Everton; goals in league games, cup games, cup finals, meaningless friendlies, practice games in training. But this one is extra special. As I jog back to the centre circle, still tingling, I go into rewind. It’s ridiculous, I know, but I’m worried I might never feel this way again. I want to remember what’s just happened, to relive the moment over and over because it feels so good.

We were under pressure, I know that, the game level at 1–1, really tight. In the seconds before the goal, I try to lay a return pass back to my strike partner, Dimitar Berbatov – a ringer for Andy Garcia in
The Godfather Part III
; dangerous like Andy Garcia in
The Godfather Part III
– but my touch is heavy. I overhit it. My heart jumps into my mouth.

City can break from here.

Luckily, Paul Scholes – ginger lad, low centre of gravity, the fella we call SatNav because his passes seem almost
computer controlled, probably the best midfielder ever to play in the Premier League – scoops up the loose ball and plays it out to our winger, Nani, on the edge of the box. He takes a couple of touches, guiding the ball with his toes, gliding over the grass more like a dancer off
Strictly Come Dancing
than a footy player, and curls a pass over the top of the City defence towards me, his cross deflecting off a defender, taking some speed off it.

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