A rather strange and pleasantly surprising football related article in "The Independent", 8 June, comparing Wayne Rooney and Morrissey. Here's an extract from Sam Wallace's article:

As the TV news helicopters buzzed above Whalley Range, as another meaningless bulletin was broadcast from outside the private hospital in that unloved suburb of Manchester, the mind drifted back to the part of the city's one other footnote in the history of English popular culture. "What do we get for our trouble and pain?" The Smiths sang plaintively in 1984. "Just a rented room in Whalley Range". And 22 years later it seemed that Morrissey, that irascible chronicler of misery, was still correct.

At lunchtime yesterday, in a rented treatment room, Wayne Rooney presented the troublesome metatarsal of his right foot to the specialist and hoped for the best, which eventually came yesterday evening. What a journey it had been to get there. Not many 20-year-olds have had to deal with a small broken part of themselves becoming an issue of international importance. A broken toe that ends up the source of a potentially monumental dispute between Sir Alex Ferguson and the Football Association. In short, a whole lot of trouble and pain.

One things stands out above all during Rooney's saga: the man himself has handled life with digniity and determination as he has had to contemplate the destruction of his World Cup dream. Watching him train alone, away from his England team mates, on Tuesday, was to know that the country's single most talented footballer was being denied the one thing he covets the most: the right to pull on a football jersey and go out and do damage to the opposition.

The fix that Rooney found himself in is peculiarly Morrissey-esque. His struggle of youth, talent and ambition to assert itself in a world that seems doomed to misunderstand him - the longing for a place in history. Both men are descendents of Irish immigrants, both have been transported by their own brilliance beyond their comfortable boundaries of their working-class backgrounds and, like Morrissey, Rooney has had to discover a robust talent for self-expression. More than ever over the last week we have seen Rooney articulate, in his own way, what it is he wants from life. etc, etc.

I do believe Sam Wallace goes to sleep dreaming of Morrissey every night!