On the morning of Wednesday 22nd September 2010, I was eating my breakfast with the family and declared to my wife that, for once on this blog, I would talk Weddings for a change; she laughed heartily and said, "Your blog followers would be disgusted and disappointed with you if you did not express your over elaborate footballing views." I sighed and uttered something under my breath about not being understood!
Later that evening Liverpool Football Club were hosting a match against my home-town team Northampton Town (many of you know that I am a Middlesbrough fan too!). I expected 5,000 Northamptonians to travel to the Merseyside, have a great experience, applaud the stoical efforts of our team of journeymen, loan signings and gullible youngsters, and sigh about the opportunities money can buy etc. What transpired enabled all Northamptonians a rare chance to seize and bask in the limelight. We outfoxed them, played them off the pitch, and we won! Then, after the empty Champagne bottles and Beer cans had been discarded into the recycling tubs, collectively we realized the depth of the tragedy that is now Liverpool Football Club in 2010. Worse was to follow, Blackpool too played them off the park but thankfully, Hick and Gillett have now been shown the door via the British courts in the capital.
Just as the mist was clearing, Wayne Rooney, who was anonymous at Wembley opened a huge can of worms in front of the press. The regular hacks and pundits had presented their views for copy and broadcast and were tidying away their laptops and microphones when he created his own verbal cadenza. A smattering of that kind of inventiveness against the proud Montenegro, we would surely have ruthlessly battered them out of sight. He was like a little boy who'd been spared a beating down a dark alleyway by the bullies, only to taunt them as they turned on their heels. Proclaiming that he had never been injured, and could not understand why Sir Alex had said so in the first place was juvenile and provocative; he knew it, and so did we! Like excited but nervous schoolchildren acting on a hunch that the class clown had sworn at the Head Teacher, we just knew that something was brewing. We whispered to one another, typed our speculative views on our fans' forums, rang our radio phone-ins and waited... Sir Alex would surely make a statement. "By heck!" as they say in a well known soap up there in Lancashire, not only did he give us a full account, he churned out the full history, chapter and verse, but more tellingly he wore the expression of wounded bewildered man; I felt at the time that no amount of PR Training can teach anyone to give that kind of performance. This was pure box office, Rooney was now cast as the villain. We speculated whether the boy from Croxteth would and really could live on Paella and late long dinners in Madrid accompanied by wine, or shopping trips with Colleen on the King's Road, or maybe he'd secretly declared himself the King of Catalonia, surely not Manchester City! The response from Rooney via a Stretford doctored statement was lame, but his point about a lack of marquee signings tried to hint that money was not the driving factor. Rumours about the golden money pot across the city surely must have affected his financial judgement or, was he, we wondered, like many United fans, genuinely very uneasy with the Glazer debt scenario; the company accounts did not make comfortable reading.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday, for the rest of us in the real world, we were discovering that services and jobs were being cut to service the deficit, by our Chancellor George Osborne. Suddenly, the Rooney situation had gone from ridiculous to being disproportionately absurd. The more I listened to one Consumer analyst after another attempting to decipher the real meaning of the Spending Review, the worse Wayne Rooney's situation was looking. Fergie candidly made it clear that he too was weary of all the nonsense, and said as much. Gareth Bale gently reminded us what star footballers are supposed to do, by scoring three fabulous goals in Milan, albeit in a losing team. Meanwhile, the banners being unfurled in the Theatre of Dreams were self-explanatory and the disenchantment was clear; the fans, it seemed, were preparing to move on painfully: The general consensus was that Rooney had played his last game for the Red Devils, very few of us thought about any other outcome. But, like the Torres situation in August, we just could not agree with any true conviction, that he was really going. Then many strange things happened, a few folks gathered outside his home for a protest, the Glazers spoke to their star player, and more importantly, I reckon he did what all of us happily married men have to do, in these challenging situations: he encouraged his wife to offer an honest opinion - he got one! Today he signed a 5 year deal...with Manchester United!
Wayne is a simple fish and chips boy, who really needs to go back to the basics; honour, loyalty and integrity. Liverpool who we defeated 31 days ago (it's now October 23rd!) are languishing in 20th place of the Premier League. In 1974, Don Revie's Leeds United were the League Champions, now they are struggling to return to the top flight after struggling to escape the third tier. The unthinkable is possible, if Blackpool can come up, then Liverpool can easily drop down. I, for one, will be watching closely. The Croxteth boy who supports the blue half of Liverpool should thank his lucky stars that if he is right in his assumption that he is carrying the team, then surely it is better to be with Manchester United at the top of the league than be in Steven Gerrard's at the bottom. Fergie was right when he made his strange analogy about cows in a field. Rooney is a luckier boy than he realizes. that whole Escort saga could have been worse, had he been at a different club. Ferguson's performance in front of the press on Tuesday was stellar demonstration of why he is the manager in pole position that everyone else is following; the art of protecting all things Manchester United was clear for all to see. The Glazers know how lucky they are to have him as their general. David Beckham, Paul Ince, Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Roy Keane will remind you that you appreciate what a great ally Sir Alex is, once he's in the opposing camp; Rooney has had his warning. From this point on he should graft very hard, and realize his potential as and be an England great who eventually retires comfortably and happily with the spoils of his labours; that is not a privilege that the late great George Best or Paul Gascoigne have enjoyed, and they too were fabulously remunerated for their talents only to destroy themselves through ill advised excess.
An old friend, who is fabulously wealthy and sold his business recently to play golf everyday in the warm Spanish sunshine once pointed out to me that after you've made a fortune and got used to it, the only thing that really changes in your life is that you can choose when to take your superior holidays and that you wear better suits. Everything else stays the same; Rooney will do well to take note.
Now, regarding Weddings, I am the best Wedding Pianist out there. I have no equal! I entertain, engage, enjoy myself, always meet and understand my Bride and Groom, prepare fastidiously, have a gargantuan repertoire, and play for as long as you like! Today, I played for 6 hours! I love Weddings and believe passionately in the Sanctity of Marriage. And I am mad about football! Like Rooney, the only difference is he got distracted from the real job in hand! I won't! I truly know how much is really at stake.
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