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Once a blue eh?

On Monday July 20, 2015, Wayne Rooney declared: “I cannot think of a better way to thank Dunc for all he did for me than turning out in his fully deserved testimonial match. Had he not asked me to play I would have gone and supported him on the day as I am sure most other Evertonians will.”

It’s taken over a decade but for one night only on Sunday August 2, Rooney will take to the field at Goodison Park wearing a royal blue jersey for the first time since May 8, 2014.

Back then Duncan Ferguson scored in a 2-1 home defeat to Bolton Wanderers.

It was a dismal period at Everton. After the initial optimism of David Moyes’ first season, the Blues finished his second campaign with a whimper, losing their final four games and ending the campaign in 17th position with a paltry 39 points – despite never being in a relegation battle.

That summer, the lifelong Evertonian who the Gwladys Street had considered one of their own became the nation’s darling with a string of stunning performances for England at the European Championship finals.

Indignantly Rooney’s final act of his all-too-short Everton career would come in the 5-1 thrashing at Manchester City a week after the Bolton game.

He’d never kick a ball for the Blues again – until next month that is.

4,097 days, and an ocean of water under the bridge will have past between the débâcle at Eastlands and the visit of Villarreal.

In that time Rooney has got married to childhood sweetheart Coleen McLoughlin, twice become a father, gone bald and grown his hair back courtesy of two hair transplants!

On the field he has won the Premier League five times with Manchester United, the Champions League and a FIFA Club World Cup.

Capped 105 times by England – whom he now captains – Rooney has scored 48 goals at international level and is on the cusp of breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s record of 49.

It’s been a glittering career. Evertonians just wish he’d stuck around a little longer.

A significant moment

Although he’s very much still a Red Devil, the return to Goodison if only for a cameo appearance in a friendly match is a significant moment.

Rooney had wanted to come back and play in his old pal Tony Hibbert’s testimonial three years ago but it was felt that the time was still not right.

To say his departure from his once seemingly beloved Blues was acrimonious would be a huge understatement.

Everton’s youth Academy had already produced several homegrown gems before Rooney’s emergence but those within the corridors at Bellefield knew there was something special with this particular talent.

Colin Harvey, who first saw Rooney play when he was 11, said: “I have played with and against people such as Alan Ball, Howard Kendall and George Best. They were all great players but not in the same league as Wayne. People might disagree but he is better than Best.”

Evertonians first started paying attention to Rooney’s potential during the the 2002 FA Youth Cup run when he almost single-handedly carried the young Blues through to the final.

It was during this time that he now celebrated a goal by removing his jersey and revealing the now infamous “Once a blue, always a blue”, t-shirt.

We all know the story that followed.

Before the year was out, Rooney was in Moyes’ first team and he introduced himself to the footballing world at large with a dramatic last-gasp winner past Arsenal’s England goalkeeper David Seaman for what was his first Premier League goal on October 19, 2002 – five days before his 17th birthday.

Learning his trade

Although there were plenty of other magical moments for the highlight reels over the next two years, Rooney remained very much a work in progress.

His individual brilliance couldn’t stop the Blues from their dismal finish in 2004 and the stats show that he failed to hit double figures in either of seasons at Goodison Park.

Man-child Rooney’s time in the Everton first team aged 16-18 would have been at time when most of his peers would have been turning out for their clubs’ youth sides.

But after rising to the big occasion with the Three Lions in Portugal, Alex Ferguson took notice and the London-based national Press seemed to demand that the player be instantly elevated to a more glittering stage than the grand old lady of Goodison could offer him.

A messy divorce

Evertonians wished as one of their own, Rooney might have wanted to spend his whole career with the Blues but many were realistic enough to realise that given his immense talent, a time would come when he would have to leave to fulfil his true potential.

They just didn’t expect it to come so soon – Rooney could have least stuck around until he was about 21 and tried to revive the club’s fortunes – and they didn’t expect to have their noses rubbed in the dirt when their Prodigal Son returned.

Unfortunately from Everton’s perspective, Rooney’s transfer to Manchester United had an inevitability about it but it’s the way he subsequently handled himself that hurt Bluebloods so much.

When Fernando Torres left Atletico Madrid – aged 23 – he held a farewell Press conference at their Vicente Calderon Stadium to thank the club and say his goodbyes properly.

But on a predictably hostile first game back at Goodison for an FA Cup tie in February 2005, Rooney inflamed the situation by kissing the Manchester United badge on his shirt – an action he repeated in 2008 – and claimed in his autobiography that his feelings towards his boyhood club had changed because of his treatment from Evertonians.

Time for reflection

While the two parties appear to be still somewhat off a reconciliation, as the years have past and Rooney has matured there does seem to be a degree of thawing in relations.

Although he kept a low profile wearing dark glasses, Rooney attended the 2009 FA Cup final to watch Everton play Chelsea and in 2011 he posted a photograph of his eldest son Kai wearing an Everton kit on his Twitter page.

The Croxteth lad turns 30 this autumn – a time when even the fittest footballers have to start contemplating life after playing at the summit of the game.

Many of his family still live in Liverpool and ultimately like all professionals he’ll be Rooney the man long after Rooney the player and while partisan allegiances to Merseyside’s Blues and Reds means that he’s unlikely to ever be high in the popularity stakes among the favourite football sons of his home city, there will be some kind of legacy to preserve in years to come.

Maybe it starts here with the gesture of a few minutes in an exhibition match.

It’s an act that would have seen unthinkable in the relatively recent past.

When he’s all washed up and United don’t want him any more, maybe, just maybe, he might return to Everton on a full-time basis.

Would he be welcome?

The jury is still out on that one, certainly given that in sporting terms he’d only be coming back as a withered husk of the boy wonder that once wowed Goodison.

Kiss and make up?

What happened in the months after Wayne Rooney’s move to Old Trafford was a crying shame for both Evertonians and Rooney.

That can’t be undone, forgiven or forgotten in a single stroke.

Come October 17 and April 2 it will be Rooney’s job to try and beat Everton with Manchester United.

But that is Rooney the player.

If, at long last, Wayne Rooney the man is finally offering the olive branch, perhaps for everyone’s sake Evertonians should take it.