February 8 – Retired former England captain Wayne Rooney has opened up about his problems with alcohol in a much-publicised upcoming documentary.
Rooney details his battle with drink at the beginning of his career as he tried to cope with sudden fame, admitting that he would sit alone in his house and binge drink as he struggled with the limelight.
Currently manager of Championship side Derby, Rooney broke into the Everton side aged 16 and joined Manchester United immediately after starring for England at Euro 2004. Now 36, he went on to become the record goal-scorer for both club and country.
“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,” he told the Mail on Sunday ahead of the release of the Amazon Prime documentary ‘Rooney’.
“For me to deal with that, deal with stuff that was in the newspapers, deal with the manager (Alex Ferguson) 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.
“Locking myself away made me forget some of the issues I was dealing with. It was like a binge. It was just a build-up of everything, 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.”
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