Twitter & Wayne Rooney: When is enough, enough?

Having won the award for goal of the season at last night’s club award ceremony for his spectacular effort against Man City in February you would think that would be the reason Wayne Rooney is in the headlines.

After a topsy turvy start to his season the striker settled in and in the second half of the term was a driving force in our run to the title and the European Cup final but it appears controversy is never to far from the England international.

Following an exchange with a Liverpool fan on Twitter yesterday you will have awoken to sensationalised headlines like ‘Rooney twitter threat’ and other such nonsense.

Having been abused by a Liverpool fan who went under the moniker of ‘sam_oldham_LFC’ Rooney retorted,

“I will put u asleep within 10 seconds hope u turn up if u don’t gonna tell everyone ur scared u little nit. I’ll be waiting”

The papers have been quick to jump all over this and point out the perils of Twitter citing the cases of Carlton Cole, Danny Gabbidon and Ryan Babel but I’ll firstly say having Wayne on Twitter has been nothing short of entertaining.He has dispelled any misconceptions of him being ‘thick’ or a ‘numbskull’ with his tweets and actually comes across as an affable character.

Who can say they didn’t enjoy his stunt with the Prince William mask? Or who doesn’t enjoy his tweets aimed at Rio or Gary Neville?

So say what you want about the situation but I for one can’t and won’t totally condemn Rooney.

For all the talk of him being a role model and knowing better, people need to realise like everyone else he is human (a fact journalists were all too happy to point out when he was suffering from poor form or when he is extra marital affairs came to light) and that most humans would react in a similar fashion.

Whilst the stories that have appeared today all focus on Rooney’s response very few have bothered to state what ‘sam_oldham_LFC’ said to Rooney to cause him to reply like that.

“Rooney ya fat whore ill smash ya head in with a pitchin wedge an bury ya with a ballast fork ya fat ugly lil nonse.’’

The excuse of ‘it’s only Twitter is one banded around too freely when people are rude over the internet and when things like this take place. Telling someone you’ll smash their head in and then bury them is not only a threat of violence but also a threat to take ones life. So over a computer or face to face, whatever reaction you get back is likely to be deserved.

If that wasn’t enough he proceeded to call Rooney a ‘nonse’. For those not familiar with the word a nonce is a term for a paedophile. Even said in jest it is likely to cause offence. Paedophilia is still very much a taboo subject, the club’s efforts to eradicate the chants aimed at Arsene Wenger are testament to this, so to call a man with a young child a paedophile is such a public domain shouldn’t be acceptable.

Wayne Rooney insinuating that they should meet up (at Carrington no less!) and fight wasn’t the smartest move but after such a highly charged exchange the fact he wasn’t thinking straight isn’t surprising.

It’s not the first time one of ours has been the target of a small minded idiot with a keyboard, Gary Neville and Phil Neville were both insulted heavily by Liverpool fans with one going on to insult Phil’s daughter who suffers from Cerebral Palsy. Would Phil have been wrong to lash out at the miscreant? Not in my book but somehow it would have twisted in a way that portrayed it as his fault, forgetting the fact Phil is human and a father, a father who has every right to defend his child.

The exchange between Rooney and the fan was later played down as banter by both parties and whilst it may have been an effort to cool the flames there is only so much that can be classified as banter. Rooney was not totally blameless here but he had more than due provocation and you just wish that this would be reported too.

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