I feel for Wayne Rooney, despite the money, fame and accolades, he’ll never not be Wayne Rooney. He’ll never escape the ageing process, his mistakes and misdemeanours will forever be public knowledge. And, in all likelihood, he’ll never be as successful as he was when he was a player.

He’s not yet forty; he probably has half his life still in front of him. He seems like a quiet, simple guy who just wants to get on with his life. Yet people talk about how he looks, his past and his managerial performances much more than they talk about his England caps, his goals or the stability and security he’s achieved for his family.

Gary Neville recently interviewed him and asked why he wanted to put his reputation on the line by becoming a manager. He said it was because of the challenge; the obsessive gene that made him become one of the world’s best footballers still drives him into these new challenges, even when the skill set needed is entirely different. Lazy people like you and I would be happy to sit in our huge mansion and spend our money; but then, lazy people don’t achieve what Wayne Rooney has achieved.

Before the game against Plymouth, the ITV highlights programme recorded their introduction for that night’s show as the players came out of the tunnel. They positioned themselves so that Rooney could be seen in the background looking on pensively preparing for the game.

Inside a minute, Plymouth fans were mocking his team singing ‘how shit must you be, you’re drawing with us’. It was self-deprecating and quite funny, but it drew more and more attention on Rooney who was sat on his haunches trying to figure out how to get his team to win the game.

There will always be a club around the Championship interested in trying to extract the magical talents associated with Rooney’s playing days. Why should he turn those opportunities down? Objectively, he’d probably be better doing what Gary Rowett has done; disappear into the lower leagues and return as a completely different person to his playing persona. Sadly, Wayne Rooney can’t do that because Wayne Rooney will always be Wayne Rooney. 

But then again, what were Plymouth thinking? Whatever his managerial talents, Rooney’s very presence lets his squad off the hook for poor performances. It didn’t take long for the Plymouth fans to start singing about Rooney’s football being shit. Nothing about the players, it was all his fault. If you’re a player in a failing squad, you’ll more likely orientate towards that narrative than take responsibility for your own actions. I think we’ve seen a bit of that in reverse; our players have lost a few percentage points in effort, focus and responsibility because so much attention was drawn to Des Buckingham’s success story. Essentially, some of the players were beginning to surf that narrative rather than apply themselves. Now things are a little less cosy, players are waking up a bit.

Being in the Championship means sitting at the foothills of genuine fame. Names that are etched in the national psyche wallow in its nooks and crannies; Rooney and Coventry’s Frank Lampard were part of a golden generation in English football, Middlesborough’s Michael Carrick and Burnley’s Scott Parker both played at the highest levels. There are plenty of players who have played in the Premier League and beyond.

And then there are others, I suspect few people outside Oxford or Cardiff will remember the name Ciaron Brown a decade from now. And yet, he continues to build his reputation. While Shemmy Płacheta’s performances and goals have drawn a lot of the focus, Brown’s goals in consecutive games has been equally important, his defensive performances even more so.

And yet he remains an enigma. Before one of the games this season, we were walking through the car park as the players were arriving. Tyler Goodrham and others were happily pausing for photos with excited kids. As we walked on, Brown appeared, unlike the others, he’d parked away from the stadium and was slipping quietly into players entrance. A fan walked up to him and asked him a question, his responses were short and monosyllabic, he wasn’t being rude, he just wanted to get on with the job, it was a by-product of his lazer-like single-mindedness.

I love his Instagram account; it’s a mix of photos of him playing alongside pictures of his family. Despite the gushing titles like ‘my world [heart emoji], in most of them Brown struggles to crack a natural smile, instead he looks like he’s been tracked down by an investigative reporter trying to get some answers to an alleged crypto scam. Like Gary Briggs, you’ll never catch him off-guard.

On the field he’s a model of application and focus, it’s as if he’s operating not so much at another level, but in a different parallel. His goal against Plymouth from Tyler Goodrham’s spectacular driven cross saw him swoop fearlessly beyond his marker to connect with the ball and arrow it beyond the keeper. With his goatee and man bun, he’s part gothic myth, part bird of prey; he is the Night Hawk.

Interviewed afterwards he said his goal was a blur, perhaps he was protecting us from his real memories of the game. Like he’s fighting a battle with the shadows of the darkness, a paradigm that we can’t comprehend with our simple mortal brains. He knows if we really understood the existential crisis we face and the monstrous enemies in the other realm, we’d simply explode in revulsion. He couldn’t do that to Nathan Cooper.

In my mind, after a game he flies on a great winged beast to a mysterious castle on the edge of a village where he keeps himself to himself. Myth and mystery swirl around him; the villagers think he’s hundreds of years old, occasionally their cattle and sheep go missing, even in the height of summer, a dark cloud hangs over his estate.

Who knows, maybe there are simpler explanations for his mystical powers. I hope not, we all need players we can believe in, but also those who seem slightly of another place. I like that he’s a mystery, it builds a protective folklore around him. It’s a stark contrast to people like Wayne Rooney dealing with the constant unrelenting spotlight. He may not end up with riches and fame, but it’s serving the Night Hawk well in the here and now.   

While you’re here…

We’re half way through the season, so it’s time to take the temperature of the club with Oxblogger’s Oxford United survey. Run twice a year, it tracks the ups and downs of the club.

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Complete the survey here.

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