A dog named Rooney

One of these days, we are going to get a dog (or two). After years of disagreement on what kind of dog we want, we saw a Rhodesian Ridgeback on the beach a few years ago and we both fell in love with the breed.

Over the years, we have been coming up with names for our future dogs. The top contender for what would be my dog whether male or female has been 'Rooney'.

Wayne Rooney is my favorite football player. He has been my favorite since early in his professional career when he was at Everton. I was thrilled when he was chosen as the youngest player ever to play on the England team. And just imagine my delight and relief when he was purchased by my husband's favorite team*, Manchester United! I no longer had to worry about discord in our marriage when Man Utd played against Everton!

During the 2006 World Cup, I was so disappointed when Rooney apparently stamped on a Portuguese player's nuts...

...he was not supposed to be that type of player. He's a good clean player with a lot of guts and can't be easily intimidated! And oh, can he read the game! He's just so intuitive. I love watching opposing players unsuccessfully try to intimidate or knock him down.

After seeing a lot of the replays and listening to the commentary though (as in the YouTube clip above), I now firmly believe that the ref let the Portuguese players double-team and foul Rooney for too long, he was frustrated, so he was kicking out to stay up, but he did not mean to stamp on the guy's nuts! I also blame Sven for putting him up front all by himself. Which he wouldn't have had to do if he had brought more strikers who would actually be good enough to play to THE. FUCKING. WORLD. CUP! I still don't excuse Rooney for what he did, but I do think it was unintentional. But I also HATE HATED Cristiano Ronaldo, a Man Utd teammate of Rooney's, for running to the ref and trying to get Rooney booked. And the wink (again, see the end of the YouTube video for that gem)! Ooooh, do did I hate Ronaldo (even though he's playing phenomenally well this season with Man U, he fucked with my boy)!

So, back to the point of my post. The other day we went down to the Press Room, which is the only English pub/bar in Santa Barbara. The owner, Raff, is from Manchester (from only a few villages away from the village my husband grew up in) and is of course a die-hard Man Utd fan too. Since we still refuse to subscribe to hundreds of crap channels/commercials (i.e. cable TV) just to be able to watch the football, this is where we have to go to watch any of the football live on TV Sometimes we go to our friend's house where we can watch it on the Spanish speaking channel though, but Raff subscribes to all the channels that have it, including the ones that have English commentators (there is nothing worse than listening to an American commentating on soccer--in fact, I can't stand listening to American sports commentators for ANY sport!)

So again, back to the story I really started... we walked in to watch Man Utd against Middlesborough, and there was a gorgeous dog, looked like a pit bull mixed with something else big. He was white with big ginger/brownish spots and coloring and he was so sweet and well-behaved. And then someone said his name to him, and I turned to my husband and with a pout, whispered, "I think his name is Rooney!" And there was no denying it, he really looked like Rooney.

A couple minutes later, as I was scratching around the cute dog's ears and chin, I surreptitiously looked at his ID tags, and to my utter dismay, it said 'ROONEY'.

My disappointment was huge! My husband tried to reassure me that we could still name our future dog Rooney. I was not convinced. My disappointment was almost as great as it was on that fateful day in 2006 when Rooney got sent off in the World Cup. Although we didn't know these particular people who owned this Rooney just yet, it was clear that he was a well-liked and regular visitor to the Press Room. Possibly a lot more regular than we have been. They would all think we were copying them if we named our future dog Rooney, and I would know there was another dog named Rooney before our Rooney.

It's like when George wants to name his first child Seven.

This left me disappointed the rest of the day, while my husband was upset that the score was 1-1 with fucking Middlesborough.

 

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* My husband grew up outside of the city of Manchester, and has been a Man U supporter since he was little, even having season tickets. He is NOT one of those fair weather supporters who jumps on the band wagon only after the team are successful and so well known all over the world.

Comments

[Ariel]

Over here some people - the ones you refer to as 'trailer trash' in the US - actually name their kids after footballers, never mind their pets...

[sbukophile]

OMG that's really funny! I don't know that I ever heard a case of that, but I did hear some funny names (we lived on the Isle of Wight for a few months, which has the highest teen pregnancy rate in England, and England has the highest teen pregnancy rate in Europe), so there were some young mums with some interesting names for their kids). I do remember being at the beach in Cornwall once and hearing a mother yelling for her kid Keanu (as in Reeves, and not as in footballer Keane). My husband and I were cracking up! And why shouldn't these people name their kids after footballers--I mean what about the footballers themselves who name their kids funny names (ahem! cough! romeo! brooklyn! ahem!)