Hmmmm. This is becoming all too familiar isn’t it? For the second time in a month United negotiate a tricky-looking away fixture via an unexpected 4 goal blitz yet the football on show isn’t the main point of discussion during the aftermath – instead it’s that duplicitous, balding, scouse headline generator again…Wayne Rooney, ladies and gentlemen.
Favourable result for us aside, anyone watching would surely have agreed that the game at West Ham was an absolute corker. It ticked all the boxes – packed stadium, calamitous defending, contentious refereeing decisions, plenty of goals, an unlikely comeback…’a great advert for the English game’ as the cliché goes. Yet Rooney alone was the story of the weekend. Not United’s comeback, not Chelsea and Arsenals bottle job, not some Hammers fans’ shameful racist targeting of Obinna and Piquionnes’ families, not Micheal Essien’s potential leg-breaker on Jermaine Pennant at the Britannia.
Although snidey elbows, abuse of referees and two-footed lunges are the current offences du jour, Wayne went for something a little different – he swore into a television camera.
It was riotously delicious moment, affirming the release all our collective frustrations following a fruitless first hour’s play at Upton Park. A fully-charged, verbal Ketsbaia, directed squarely into camera and aimed at the cerebral cortex of the ABU nation. It was passionate, ecstatic and when judged in the cold light of day, all a bit cringeworthy. Exactly like football itself, then – life-affirming stuff, which is exactly the reason why they have TV cameras there in the first place.
Rooney’s reaction was no different to many United fans watching in the stands or at home. He went mental, he swore…and yes, in reflection it was excessive. Sky clocked the incident so made an immediate on-air apology and Wayne himself followed suit later that day. Anyone offended by that or claiming to have traumatised children as a result, seriously needs to get a grip – and consider parenting classes.
The mock outrage that’s routinely played out throughout the sports media is now all too predictable and the FA, spineless bastards all, predictably caved. So the football authorities are scared of Alex Ferguson and display leniency where Man United are concerned, do they? S’yeah right. Since the start of March we’ve had 3 penalties against us, 2 red cards, a 5 game touchline ban for Ferguson himself and now a 2 match ban pending for Rooney. Consistency is required is it? Looks quite consistent to me.
So we’ll take any ban forthcoming and we’ll carry on. I don’t expect any suspension to be detrimental to our prospects for the remainder of the season, if anything it’ll have the opposite, galvanising effect. Events since South Africa last summer have shown the days of Wayne Rooney starring as the Golden Boy of English Football™ are over and he’s been relegated to the pantomime villain role. At risk of sounding all über-red and anti-Ingerlund, it’d be great to see Rooney tell the FA exactly where to stick the suggestion the next time he’s asked to schlep overseas to appear in some meaningless friendly.
Fuck them. Bring on #19.
Copyright Red News – April 2011
carlosartorial 