Wayne Rooney speaks honestly in an interview with Mail on Sunday on struggles with his binge-drinking battle at the start of his career.
The former Manchester United striker has admitted that he found it hard not to drink alcohol during his playing career in an attempt to take his mind off issues he was facing.
Rooney, who is currently performing a miracle in the Championship with Derby County, has addressed his former drinking problems ahead of the release of the Amazon Prime Video documentary ‘Rooney’.
The Rams boss — who found the net 253 times in 559 appearances for the Red Devils, helping them win five Premier League titles during that time — joined the club from Everton in 2004 as an 18 year old.
Now looking to have a successful career in management at the Rams, Rooney has opened up on his previous self, pointing out how big a challenge he faced in dealing with pressure during his younger days.
At just 16 when he became a Premier League player, he says he was unprepared for life in the spotlight and suffered mental anguish.
‘I would actually lock myself away and just drink to try to take all that away from my mind … Locking myself away made me forget some of the issues I was dealing with,’ he says.
‘It was like a binge. Normally, that’s with a group of lads but this was a self-binge.
‘I’d get a couple of days off and I wouldn’t want to be near anyone. I would sit in the house and for two days, I would just drink.
‘Then on the third day, when I was back in training, I would have to dust myself down and put eye drops in and get through that week’s training. I was in a really bad place.’
Rooney said it would have been impossible for him to share his feelings and problems ‘in the United dressing room’, adding: ‘Now people would be more empowered to speak about that kind of thing … then you would suffer internally rather than letting your thoughts out …
‘Growing up on a council estate, you would never actually go and speak to anyone. You would always find a way to deal with it yourself. It was trying to cope with it yourself rather than asking for help.’
‘It was almost as if being right in my head took a bit away from my game. Not being right in my head gave me that added unpredictability,’ he says.
‘I was always angry and aggressive when I was growing up. That was obvious when I came into football. It was obvious I had some issues which I had to try and deal with and now, thankfully, I have got them all under control.’
Admitting he has tried therapy, he adds: ‘What I learned was I could feel it coming, like an explosion. I used to hold almost everything in and keep it to myself and it would build up.’
He says his wife Coleen, who has had to cope with a series of scandals involving alcohol and other women, sensed when those explosions were coming.
‘I would say “F*** it” and go out and make silly mistakes with the explosion,’ he says.
‘I learned that when I felt that coming, I needed to sit down and talk to someone. That calmed things down. I spoke to Coleen quite a few times, her mum and dad and my mum and dad.’
In one clip from the new documentary, he talks about his metatarsal injury sustained against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in April 2006 that almost ruled him out of that year’s World Cup – saying he blames himself for it.
‘I changed my studs before the game,’ he says. ‘I put longer studs in because I wanted to hurt someone.’
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Footage then shows Rooney stamping on John Terry’s foot which leaves the Chelsea defender requiring treatment, his sock bloodied
‘If Chelsea won a point, they won the league,’ Rooney says. ‘At that time, I couldn’t take it. The studs were legal, they were a legal size, but they were bigger than what I would normally wear.’
He said about times he visited therapists, never for a long period. When former Three lions manager Steve McClaren introduced psychologist Bill Beswick to the squad, he suggested they have sessions with him, Rooney was furious because he thought it was a ruse to get him some help. ‘That’s where I was at that point,’ he says.
On being a father, a husband, and a manager, he is now finding peace.
‘We grew up in a council estate in Croxteth,’ says Rooney, ‘and when my grandad died, I spent a lot of time in my nan’s house on Armill Road. I was almost living with my nan. My mum was looking after me and my two brothers. I know now that we were hard work.
‘There was a lot of negativity in terms of my mum getting frustrated with us as kids, messing around all the time, smashing things in the house and my nan lived in the same road, a few houses down.
‘She died just before I made my debut for Everton in 2002. I was really close to her. I was devastated when she died. She was a big character.
‘When she died, it was a big loss to all the family. She would always buy football kits for me. Loads of the family would spend the day at my nan’s and then, of a night, when everybody had gone, I would go back over to my nan’s and sit up late with her. I used to watch Prisoner Cell Block H with her all the time.
‘My mum and dad never had a lot of money at all. It was difficult growing up there. I was always getting into fights and arguments in that area.
‘To go from that to having to deal with becoming a Premier League player at 16 and an international player was something I wasn’t prepared for.
‘I had never even thought about the other side of being a football player. I wasn’t prepared for that part of life.
‘It took a long time for me to get used to that and figure out how to deal with it. It was like being thrown in somewhere where you are just not comfortable. That was tough for me.
‘I had made a lot of mistakes when I was younger, some in the press and some not in the press, whether that’s fighting or whatever. For me to deal with that, deal with stuff that was in the newspapers, deal with the manager at the time, deal with family at the time, was very difficult.
‘In my early years at Manchester United, probably until we had my first son, Kai, I locked myself away really. I never went out.
‘There were times you’d get a couple of days off from football and I would actually lock myself away and just drink, to try to take all that away from my mind.
‘People might know that I liked a drink at times or went out but there was a lot more to it than just that. It was what was going on in my head.
‘Now, people would be more empowered to speak about that kind of thing. Back then, in my head and with other players, there was no way I could go into the United dressing room and start saying “This is how I am feeling” because you just wouldn’t do it. Then you would end up suffering internally rather than letting your thoughts out.
‘Locking myself away made me forget some of the issues I was dealing with. It was like a binge.
‘Normally, that’s with a group of lads but this was a self-binge, basically, which helps you forget things but when you come out of it, you are going back to work and it is still there so it was doing more damage than good.’
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Parts of the doc shows Rooney and his wife sitting together and discuss moments where he embarrassed her with behaviour that she describes as ‘unacceptable’.
She spoke about his relationship with alcohol and how she felt uneased about the effect some of his friends have on him.
Rooney talks about the culture of fighting that surrounded him growing up, the passions that ruled him and his gratitude he has coming out the other side, shedding so much of the anger he felt.
‘It was just a build-up of everything,’ says Rooney, ‘pressure of playing for your country, playing for Manchester United, the pressure of some of the stuff which came out in the newspapers about my personal life, just trying to deal with all that pressure which builds up.
‘I was trying to figure out how to deal with it by myself. Growing up on a council estate, you would never actually go and speak to anyone. You would always find a way to deal with it yourself. It was trying to cope with it yourself rather than asking for help.
‘Early on in my career, I played with a lot more anger and picked up the odd red card. The anger was all the time when I was drinking, when I was having these moments. Still constantly in my head, I was raging.
‘When I learned to control it, it took that away from me. It was almost as if being right in my head took a bit away from my game. Not being right in my head gave me that added unpredictability.
‘I was always angry and aggressive when I was growing up. That was obvious when I came into football. It was obvious I had some issues which I had to try and deal with and now, thankfully, I have got them all under control.
‘You are always taught to fight for what you want when you are growing up and take what you want. You never got given anything.
‘In some ways, that was good because it helped me play and a lot of the anger I felt was because I did things that enabled people to say things and write things about me that wasn’t really me but were isolated incidents I had got myself involved in. That was when I was drinking and hiding away. There was a lot of anger and pain.
‘When something happened, it was always involving drink. It’s never when I’m sober. That’s what I had to figure out: the places I go and the things I do.
‘My relationship with drink now is fine. No problems. I still have a drink now and again. Not like I used to. Not like when I was playing. It’s well in control.
‘It was never at a stage where I thought I was an alcoholic. If I saw a couple of days’ window, I thought “right, that’s a couple of days where I can go at it and try and forget things”. I would never be going into training drunk.
‘Part of the problem I have is that I do trust people. That was exactly my first message to the players here at Derby: “I will give you my trust but I need it back.”
‘Once that trust is broken, it is very difficult to recover. Yeah, people want stuff off you but I take responsibility for that because some of the stuff I have done is my decisions and that’s me leaving myself open.
‘I should have learned quicker than I did to adjust to that. Over the last 15 years, I haven’t had very many nights out. I might have had 10 nights out but the ones I have had… four or five of them have given people big exclusives.
‘In terms of therapy, I have spoken to a few different people. I have never done a period of time where I have done two years with someone and it has been ongoing.
‘What I learned was I could feel it coming, like an explosion. I used to hold almost everything in and keep it to myself and it would build up. I would deny it but Coleen could see it coming every time.
‘I would say “F*** it” and go out and make silly mistakes. I learned that when I felt that coming, I needed to sit down and talk to someone. That calmed things down.
‘I spoke to Coleen quite a few times, her mum and dad and my mum and dad. I only did that once when it got to a bad moment.
‘A bad moment? It could be anything. That you weren’t playing well, the pressure you put on yourself, which I always tried to hide. Sometimes I tried to hide it with over-confidence. Sometimes that’s to mask the pressure you feel.
‘It could have been when I had done something wrong off the field and pressure builds and even going into the local shops, you want to hide from everyone. It is embarrassing. I was embarrassed by it.
‘I’d get a couple of days off and I wouldn’t want to be near anyone. I would sit in the house and for two days, I would just drink. Then on the third day, when I was back in training, I would have to dust myself down and put eye drops in and get through that week’s training. I was in a really bad place.
‘Then I had to get through training, through games. It was constant for about three or four years in that initial period of being at United.
‘That was the heart of it. And it was arguably the best I played in that period. That was part of the problem because you are playing OK and you think you can get away with it and that had an impact on me at the back end of my time at Man United because you can’t do that as an athlete.’
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He adds that he’s pleased with how the documentary turned out and in it wanted to be honest and to talk about things he has never talked about before and he feels the film has achieved that.
“Everything that has happened at Derby has made me think even more that I can have a good career in management,” Rooney finishes.
“I believe that 100 per cent. I believe we will stay up. I think I could go into the Premier League and manage at a top club now. I have no worries about that.
“I know what my strengths are and, more importantly, I know what my weaknesses are.”
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