The Spirit Of Big Sam Compels You: Analysing The Wayne Rooney Wine Fiasco

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports UK.

Somewhere in Watford, the clock strikes midnight, and its ominous thundering echoes through the hotel. The wedding party is in full swing, its raucous chatter fills the halls and yet, for Wayne Rooney, the silence is deafening, with only the distant sound of the wind to disturb him. He is slumped on the sofa, utterly alone, empty wine glass clutched in his drooping hand. He raises it weakly to his stained, red lips, only to taste the disappointment of total nothingness. Suddenly, he hears a whisper in his ear, which rises to a deafening roar.

"GET ANOTHER PINT O' HARDYS DOWN YOU MY SON, AND LET'S BE HAVIN' IT FOOKIN' LARGE."

Wayne knows this voice in an instant, and is startled from his catatonic stupor. That booming Dudley brogue, that familiar jocularity, that beautiful, harmonious, soulful bellowing. That rage, that love, that spirituality, sounding out with each sonorous syllable. This voice belongs to Wayne's lord and saviour, the England manager who died to wash away the nation's sins. This voice belongs to the spirit of Big Sam and, by God, Wazza will follow his divine and ineluctable command.

It is here that things get out of hand for Rooney. He is compelled ever onwards by the voice of Big Sam, to date the only England manager who has been sacked for allegedly drinking wine from a pint glass. "GET YER PIE HOLE AROUND THAT, LAD," Big Sam cries, urging his former England ward to sloosh down another fractional gallon of Cabernet Sauvignon. Wayne is necking pints of Malbec, wanging back Merlot, spilling Pinot Noir over the floor while giggling like a guileless child at this point. The spirit of Big Sam is egging him on until, barely able to speak, barely able to stand, he hears that same voice triumphantly scream: "OFF YER HEAD SON… AT FIVE IN THE FOOKIN' MORNIN'."

Barring the explicit detail of the divine spirit of Sam Allardyce, that's pretty much the story The Sun would have you believe. In two online articles, the first entitled "HE WAS S***-FACED" and the second "RED RED WAYNE" – a pun which we must grudgingly admit is excellent – Britain's most inexplicably popular tabloid has accused Wayne Rooney of getting monumentally pissed. The alleged session allegedly took place at a wedding in the spiritual capital of Hertfordshire, Watford, and allegedly involved Rooney being "draped by two women," "staggering around in the small hours of Sunday," and "barely able to keep his eyes open." The editorial team at The Sun are so pleased with this story that it has been incorporated into Wednesday's front page, accompanied by a picture of Rooney looking, in their own words, off his head.

What The Sun have described as "a wedding source" has said: "Wayne went into the wedding with [Phil] Jagielka and got absolutely plastered. He couldn't string a sentence together and was falling over like the 'comedy drunk', no-one could believe this was the England captain." This all sounds perfectly fine to us, until a very serious allegation is made. "He was out of his head sinking glass after glass of red wine. The pictures were taken in the early hours and everyone carried on drinking after that."

Now, we are not ones to take The Sun at face value. Nor are we the type to moralise over footballers' unhealthy drinking habits, inferior as they doubtlessly are to our own. That said, a charge has now been laid at Wayne Rooney's door which is so grave, so severe, that it must indeed be answered. It is a slight against his sense of self, an affront to his national sensibilities, an insult to his fundamental Englishness. He stands accused of sinking glass after glass of red wine, with the insidious inference being that these were not, in fact, pints. In other words, it is alleged that he does not drink his wine from a proper, English pint pot, as the Son, the Father, and the Holy Spirit of Big Sam did intend.

Far from the pints of Malbec we imaged, The Sun has basically inferred that Wayne Rooney sups from a nice, stemmed glass of red wine when he's having a session. Forget the allegations about his late night boozing and the subsequent injury that ruled him out of the England squad for the rest of the international break; this is the true scandal here, the true fiasco at the heart of it all. How can we, the English public, allow Wayne Rooney to play for The Three Lions, when he drinks from a wine glass like some sort of Frenchman? Were these allegations to be proved true, it would surely be the final straw for Rooney's waning international career.

What's important here is not the extremely tenuous suggestion that Rooney's decline is linked to his red wine consumption, but rather the unpatriotic manner in which he is alleged to consume that wine. If there was anything that we learnt from Big Sam's tenure in charge of the England team, it's that a man must make sacrifices for what he believes in, and all true Englishmen believe in their national duty to sling back Morrison's own-brand Côtes du Rhône from a pint glass. Big Sam didn't lose the England job because of corruption, or underhandedness, or dirty dealings; he lost it because those suits at the FA couldn't handle his monumental, throbbing Englishness; his public commitment to pints of wine. For a member of his England team to neglect said commitment would be nothing short of snub to Big Sam's memory. It would be a disgrace to this nation, and an act of calumny that no true Englishman could forgive.

That is why, in the spirit of Big Sam, we call upon Wayne Rooney to dispel these accusations. He need not fear having been out on the piss until five in the morning, so long as he did so with a pint of wine in hand. If he can prove that he drank his wine from a pint glass, The Sun ought to retract their trifling, insignificant stories, and offer a public apology forthwith. If not, the nation will be heartbroken, and a long and illustrious England career will have come to a sad and ignominious end.

@W_F_Magee