5 revelations from Rooney documentary – brothel regret to ‘dirty little b*****d’

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Love him or hate him, you're always reading about him.

Wayne Rooney is one of the more divisive figures in English football history. A supreme talent, but one that has had many chinks to his armour.

Very few footballers in English football history have had the same attention and scrutiny on their lives – and now Rooney himself has told his side of the story of his phenomenal life.

Rooney is released on Amazon Prime Video on Friday and the Manchester United legend gives a never-seen-before take on his upbringing, his rise and his falls.

Here are five highlights we picked out from the show.

Rooney loved a scrap as a kid

We all know Rooney was a bit rough and ready as a kid – and his rye smile when recalling stories of scraps he got into as a kid are certainly endearing.

Rooney says: "I weren't the nicest kid at that age (teenage years). There were just things I did that were rotten.

"I had a lot of fights when I was younger.

"I wouldn't say I was a bully, but there were some things that I done that I shouldn't have done and crossed the line, looking back now.

"I don't know if it was an anger or whether there was an enjoyment in it.

"Sometimes you get hit and it's not nice, but I used to get some sort of enjoyment out of it.

"I remember growing up I used to go to a lot of concerts. A lot of Travellers concerts, Stereophonics, Cast – who was a local Liverpool band – and there were normally a lot of fighting at the end of it.

"Imagine in the middle of a mosh pit, there's probably 15 of us, all Scousers, and we could be in the middle of Manchester. There would always end up being a fight.

"I remember I got my jaw snapped in Manchester. I was about 13. Some guy grabbed hold of me and he hit me.

"He went to hit me again and I ducked and just threw a big haymaker at him which caught him, then I just ran off."

He was a "dirty little b*****d"

Gary Neville was a long-time team-mate of Rooney but he got to get up close and personal with him before they were pals.

And the first impression did not disappoint.

In a reserve team match in the early 00s, Neville was playing alongside Nicky Butt against Everton. It was just before Rooney made his first-team debut.

"I played against him as a 16-year-old in a reserve team game," Neville told the doc.

"He booted me and David May and I couldn't believe it. I knew he was a dirty little b*****d.

"He played like a street kid from the minute he came into Everton.

"He fought for every ball, jumped for every header, went full-bloodied into every tackle.

"He defended for his life, attacked for his life and just threw everything onto the football pitch.

"When you align that with the incredible talent, that is why he was so special."

Sven never knew about secret World Cup injury

When Rooney returned to the World Cup fold in 2006, everyone thought his problems were past him because he had recovered from a broken metatarsal.

Well, maybe not.

For the first time, Rooney has revealed that he picked up a new injury in his first training session back – but he decided to play through the excruciating pain.

Sven Goran Eriksson had no idea about the injury and he finds out about it for the very first time in the documentary. Sven's face is, of course, a picture.

Rooney said: "My first training session with the team was the next day. We went out to the pitch, jogging round and there is a ball by the halfway line. I kicked it trying to hit the crossbar… pulled my groin. I had a six centimetre tear in my groin which I didn't report to the physios.

Rooney: "I think it is naive, of course, but you want to play. You want to play for your country. I just thought I'd be OK."

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The man himself on the 'stamp'

If we thought we were getting to the bottom of whether Rooney meant to stamp on Ricardo Carvalho at the World Cup, think again.

That's because even Rooney has no idea whether he meant to do it or not.

"I still don't know how the referee hasn't given me a foul beforehand," Rooney says.

"And I still don't know to this day, truthfully, whether I've meant to stamp on him or not. I don't know. I couldn't tell you.

"My head had completely just blurred out, I don't know if I've meant to do it, I don't know if I have just come down on him accidentally."

"I'm not that type of person" – and Coleen forgives him

While the documentary does not address all of Rooney's misdemeanours off the pitch, an infamous trip to a brothel is highlighted, while other incidents are mentioned in passing.

Straight from the off, Rooney says: "There is stuff that has happened in the past, like things with girls for instance. It is stuff that I regret. It is stuff that I feel has stuck against my name.

"Maybe time is my reputation as a person. People still see that and they look at me in a different way.

"I am not that person. I am not that type of person."

He continues later in the doc, about the brothel stories: "I put myself in the wrong place and when you’re in the wrong place and there’s alcohol involved, you’re gonna make bad decisions and you’re going to have to suffer and deal with the consequences.

"That’s what happens, it doesn’t take away any of my love for Coleen.

"It happened, it was a wrong decision to make. I held my hands up and that’s it, we worked through it."

And Coleen forgives him.

She says: "I wouldn’t be standing here if I hadn’t forgiven him.

"Life goes on. I’ve not accepted… I’ve moved on. You’ve moved on.

"The behaviour, it’s not acceptable. Forgiveness is different.

"It’s not acceptable what he’s done, but it’s happened and that was in the stage of life we were in at the time but we’ve moved on.

"I forgive him, but it wasn’t acceptable. But no, if it comes up we talk about it, I haven’t got the anger that I did at the time."

  • Rooney is available to watch on Amazon Prime Video from Friday 11th February.


  • Wayne Rooney
  • Manchester United FC
  • England Football Team

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