Wayne Rooney: My two-day solo booze binges to wipe out my mental anguish
WAYNE Rooney has revealed he regularly went on secret two-day drinking binges at home as he struggled with the pressures of fame.
The former England and Manchester United captain said that while it was common knowledge that he liked a drink, ‘there was a lot more to it than just that – it was what was going on in my head’.
In a soul-baring interview with Oliver Holt, The Mail on Sunday’s Chief Sports Writer, the 36-year-old likened the anxieties that engulfed him early in his career to the buildup of an ‘explosion’. At just 16 when he became a Premier League player, he says he was unprepared for life in the spotlight.
‘I would actually lock myself away and just drink to try to take
‘I put longer studs in... I wanted to hurt someone’
all that away from my mind,’ he says. ‘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.
‘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’s relationship with alcosays hol and brushes with controversy are well documented, but never has he spoken with such candour.
One drunken binge in 2016 saw him gatecrash a wedding at the England team hotel in Hertfordshire, resulting in an FA inquiry.
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.’
Rooney also reflects on how he was beset by frequent bouts of anger which sometimes actually helped his game.
‘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 said.
‘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.’
Now manager of Championship side Derby County, he confronts his issues in the documentary, Rooney, which is released on Amazon Prime on Friday.
In one clip, he discusses the metatarsal injury sustained against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge in April 2006 that almost ruled him out of that year’s World Cup – and 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.’
The clip then shows footage of Rooney stamping on John Terry’s foot which leaves the Chelsea defender requiring treatment, his sock reddened with blood.
‘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.’