Like many others, I can remember vividly where I was the moment Wayne Rooney announced his arrival as a Premier League player.
A sunny autumnal October afternoon. The champions in town. A record unbeaten run ended. The birth of a brilliant footballer.
Not fortunate enough to witness it live, instead that moment was soundtracked by moans from my uninterested gran as I split the television screen between some dross drama and Ceefax score updates.
Ways to consume the Premier League have come a long way.
Over at Goodison Park, Tomasz Radzinski had cancelled out Freddie Ljungberg’s opener for Arsenal, and a point seemed a good result for Everton as the clock ticked towards full-time.
Unbeknownst to the impressionable nine-year-old staring blankly at a television screen, eagerly awaiting score updates, David Moyes has thrust his teenage trump card into the action.
Then it appeared. Rooney 90’.
Rooney?
A childhood football knowledge that spanned little more than FIFA games, Merlin sticker books, and Premier League big hitters needed to know more. The radio talk on the drive home centred around a 16-year-old sensation. Barely out of school. Sinking Arsenal.
It wasn’t just any goal, either. A hopeful hoof from Thomas Gravesen was brought down with velvet softness. As Arsenal retreated, Rooney took aim. The teenager could have been forgiven for putting his laces through it but instead, he went for precision. David Seaman, fresh from an error for England against Macedonia, could get nowhere near it.
In the days that followed, hours were spent trying to repeat Rooney’s golden goal. A ball thrown onto the house roof to imitate the sky-high drop of Gravesen’s lump, a garden chair placed on the lawn to represent some kind of four-legged miniature Sol Campbell.
With each repetition, the imaginary voice of Clive Tydsley accompanied it. “Rooney. Instant control. Fancies his chances…”
See, as a nine-year-old, you watch a moment like that and still have the innocent belief it could one day be you. It remained even a little later, as Rooney rag-dolled senior stars at Euro 2024 in an England shirt.
It’s only as the years pass that you realise there was nothing normal about Rooney at all. This was a one-in-a-generation footballer, birthed in blue, remarkable, regrettably, in red.
Today marks the 40th birthday of that once untouchable teenage tyro.
Just where does the time go?
Reader Comments (6)
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Andrew Merrick
1 Posted
24/10/2025 at
17:08:20
To quote Max Boyce…
I was there with no words to describe it, special moment.,,
Mike Allison
2 Posted
24/10/2025 at
17:14:33
I have no affection for Wayne Rooney whatsoever.
Ian Wilkins
3 Posted
24/10/2025 at
18:21:05
Wayne Rooney didnt choose to leave Everton. Everton had to sell him for the best price they could after hawking him round. We were financially bankrupt or near to it. Selling off our assets as we did for many years…
Tony Abrahams
4 Posted
24/10/2025 at
19:20:31
Despite not scoring, (he never scored was his managers words when interviewed after the game) I marvelled at this completely magnificent, (imo) display, and looked forward to the ensuing years, absolutely thrilled that Everton, had such a complete young scouse-Evertonian footballer.
As those years went by it saddened me to think that this great young player, was the reason the greatest player never to kick a ball for Everton, was allowed to continue as the owner of our once great club, by selling arguably the greatest young footballer, that England has ever produced.
For the reason I have stated in the paragraph above, this is the reason why, I wish we never had Wayne Rooney.
Ian Jones
5 Posted
24/10/2025 at
19:35:37
However, to adapt the famous line from Casablanca..
‘We’ll always have Rooney’
His goal from his own half in his second stint vs West Ham wasn’t too shabby…
Ernie Baywood
6 Posted
24/10/2025 at
19:52:18
Even then, I remember staying in touch with the match and racing to my hotel room to switch on whatever channel was live reporting (might have been Sky, or possibly BBC?). They said there was big news from Goodison and you just had a sense of what it was going to be.
Then for a little while he took us on this mad journey where it looked like this young Scouse kid might just transform the fortunes of the club he loved as much as we did.
And then he left. As a young blue, Duncan Ferguson had already broken my heart and turned me into a cynic so Rooney leaving didn’t have quite the same effect on me. But it was a sad sign that the resurgence wasn’t coming, even if it turned out that the team went on to achieve more without him.
For all his achievements I still don’t think he ended up completely fulfilling his potential. The 16/17 year old at Everton was the best young player I’ve ever seen. He did things that people couldn’t believe. Confidence, skill, ability, aggression… he had absolutely everything.
I always believed he should have done one more year at Everton and time hasn’t changed that view. Then, maybe, he might have been remembered differently. Maybe we’d have still made it into Europe and he could have grown with the club and achieved something truly incredible. As it is, the late career return barely registers for me.
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