In a legend's shadow

Football : Wayne Rooney might have overtaken Charlton's scoring record but the master was a superior player

Wayne Rooney hit the penalty kick so hard that he was able to force it into the roof of the Swiss net, despite the goalkeeper’s getting his hand on the ball. And with that, Rooney became the first, and only, player to score 50 goals for England.

The country began playing international matches in 1872.
Up until Tuesday night, Rooney shared the scoring record with Bobby Charlton, who many would argue is the greatest Englishman to have played soccer.

“I speak to Sir Bobby a lot,” said Rooney, “but never about his records. He comes into the Manchester United dressing room and talks to us all, and it’s a huge, exciting, proud moment for me to finally achieve this.”

Rooney, the tough man of his generation, then did what we have never seen him do before. He let the tears flow.

Rooney and Charlton can never be compared as the same type of players. Not only did they occupy different eras almost half a century apart, but Charlton was an all-around player whose finest goals came from outside the penalty area and were things of great beauty, wonder and accuracy. Rooney, on the other hand, is more of an enforcer, a predator of chances closer to the goal.

Yet there is remarkable symmetry between their statistics. Charlton scored 49 goals in 106 games for England between 1958 and 1970. Rooney has 50 goals in 107 appearances since 2003, also a 12-year period.

Charlton played for Manchester United in its halcyon days when the club forged its global reputation in Old Trafford Stadium. Rooney has played for Manchester United since 2004, and the two frequently meet in the locker room where Charlton, now a director of the club, mingles with the players.

There is another Charlton scoring record — the 249 goals he scored for United — that Rooney is expected to eclipse. Rooney now has 233 goals for his club, third behind Denis Law, who had 237.

Law was an out-and-out scorer, a dashing cavalier and poacher of the goal mouth. Charlton was so much more, a creator of the team’s rhythm and flow, an individual around whom the entire team was structured.

Rooney in that sense is closer to Charlton than to Law. But he is not really comparable to either, because while Rooney’s natural position is behind the team’s main striker, he is a far sturdier figure than either, with his strength, stamina and tenacity.

Where Rooney was raised, in a tough area of Liverpool, people expected him to be a boxer, but soccer took precedence. He made his debut with Everton at 16 and the senior men’s national team at 17, and at 18 he was purchased by United for what was then a record fee for a teenager.

Now approaching 30, he still thinks he has years of play left in him.
One aspect in which he long ago overtook Charlton was in salary. Charlton and his brother, Jack, came from a coal-mining family and readily accepted 15 pounds a week to play, the maximum that professionals were paid at the time in Britain. And when the brothers both played roles on the only English team ever to win the World Cup in 1966, their reward was £1,000 each.

Rooney’s weekly salary is 200 times that, apart from all the other endorsement money he makes.

But if you saw the tears at Wembley last Tuesday, if you watched his face when the tributes — led by Charlton — started, then you would know you could not put a price on the feelings Rooney obviously felt.

Trying to sound like the model pro, Rooney said on television that his priority now was getting back to Manchester and preparing for United’s game against Liverpool.
In that, Rooney is the equivalent of Charlton.

Charlton scored 15 goals for England from outside the penalty area; Rooney’s total is 8. Charlton was predominantly right-footed; so is Rooney. Rooney is better in the air, judging by his 11 headed goals to Charlton’s two.

But you would be living in the clouds if you believed that England might anytime soon repeat their 1966 World Cup triumph. England’s performance in the 2-0 victory over Switzerland was, to put it kindly, uninspired.

The modern team is not remotely close to being the equal of the one that featured the Charltons, Martin Peters, Alan Ball and Bobby Moore.

That team had the luxury of being able to choose its striker. Manager Alf Ramsey picked the robust and industrious Geoff Hurst for the 1966 final and left out a man who was probably the prince among English scorers, Jimmy Greaves.

Greaves finished his career with a ratio of goals to games that no English player has bettered: 44 goals in 57 games. For decades, Greaves was viewed as a carefree man; he was a raconteur, an after-dinner speaker and a television talk show host.

Behind that bonhomie, he was hurting over the opportunity he was denied, playing in a World Cup final. Greaves battled alcoholism and eventually beat it, but he suffered a severe stroke last year. He needs extensive physical therapy, aid that costs tens of thousands of pounds that he does not have.

A public appeal was made to raise £30,000, about $46,000, a pittance compared with the salaries of today and small change to clubs like Chelsea and Tottenham that Greaves played for. But just when it seemed that the fund would close far short of its goal, fans from around the world chipped in, and the fund reached £39,000 last Tuesday.

On the day that Rooney eclipsed Charlton, the public made sure that Greaves was also a winner.