I remember it was Fr. Hilary Agbenosi I was with when as the TV’s voice in the background shouted “Rooney…” . FR. Hilary unenthusiastically said with dismissive tone “if you hear such a noise you know it is a dead match”. And truly it was a football match between Manchester United and Manchester City in which Rooney scored the winning Goal.
Those were the glory days of Manchester United and Wayne Rooney. But with time Wayne Rooney’s impact on Man U matches gradually waned. He was no longer the great Rooney we knew. Sometimes we wanted to boo him but were held back out of respect for what he has done for the club. But you can trust that we did it undertone sometimes.
Do not be mistaken to write him off yet. He still has what we call in Ghana “football sense”. No one can deny that his record breaking goal was a phenomenal goal delivered with precision. What then was the problem?
On the big stage the team was breaking down and everyone was looking out for a saviour. In such situations past achievements and accomplishments almost always become inconsequential. What use is a mere aroma of a delicious food to the hungry man? In those times, the standards though the same, the expectations rose to unrealistic levels.
This could happen to any of us. But note, there was still some shine left in him. When he left to Everton he did well. That can be our story too.
The point of Rooney’s life is this, you are never done until you give up. If he had given up we would not have seen the spectacular performances he put up at Everton and even now at D.C United,USA.
Move on when the expectations become unrealistic. With Rooney we -united supporters- still expected that he would perform as we knew him to do some years ago. But these were unrealistic expectations being pushed upon the shoulders of one who has laboured so much for the team.
The world is bigger than where you are familiar with. Sometimes we hold on too much and too long to things and places we are familiar with. And because of this there seem to be no improvement in our lives. It is time to move on and discover other challenges and grow.
By Fr. Delight Arnold Carbonu
