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Within the nice Venn diagrams of life, it’s uncommon that we discover “soccer” and “poetry” overlapping, however on final night time’s I’m a Celeb Get Me Out of Right here, Coleen Rooney sat completely in that cross part.
“Is he affectionate, in phrases?” her co star GK Barry asks of Coleen’s footballer husband, Wayne Rooney. “He’s at all times wrote me poems,” she responds.
It’s simple to chuckle at this. Earlier than final night time, my data of Wayne Rooney’s prowess with phrases was restricted to his expertise for alliteration when naming his youngsters (Kai, Klay, Package and Cass).
So, sure – it’s comedic to think about a person famed for his penalty field prowess, his receding hairline and his allegedly nefarious dealings with intercourse staff sitting in a full package in an away altering room, scribbling on resort stationery one thing like: “Roses are pink / Soccer pitches are inexperienced / I put the purpose within the internet / and my love in you, Coleen.”
The humour, nevertheless, falls away after we keep in mind different Manchester United footballers who’ve written poetry. Ryan Giggs famously had a go at rhyming couplets, which surfaced in his defence when he was accused of headbutting his then-girlfriend and elbowing her sister; penning traces like, “you’re my love, my buddy, my soul/…you consider in me. Which makes me really feel as onerous as a totem pole”. Giggs at all times denied the allegations and was in the end cleared of all costs.
Totem poles apart, why are we so able to chuckle on the notion of footballers placing pen to paper to put in writing one thing romantic within the first place? Or placing pen to paper – in any respect?
It appears to me that we put males into two classes: the physique and the mind. We consider “masculine males” as those that use their physique for a residing, or as a mirrored image of their success. Builders, carpenters and athletes have been grouped along with jacked CEOs and influencers as “alpha males” whose value, dedication and ethical fortitude is all symbolized by having a six pack.
However, there are the “beta males”, the “female males” – writers, accountants, workplace staff and poets like me. If now we have any value in any respect in a capitalist society, it’s one supposedly based mostly on our mind. All of that is an extension of a binary masculine/female divide which courses males as materials and affordable – and girls as immaterial and illogical.
As GK Barry mentioned final night time: “By no means did I ever suppose Wayne Rooney had it in him to put in writing a love poem. I by no means noticed him as that sort of man.”
To which I need to instantly ask: what sort of man? The sort of man who’s able to each an overhead kick which continues to be thought of top-of-the-line objectives in Premier League Historical past – and a poem articulating his love for his spouse? That couldn’t probably be the identical man? Why not?
When it’s revealed that he writes poetry, we react with shock (or snark) as a result of our categorisation of that particular person – and maybe our categorisation of all folks – has been rocked at its foundations: my god, somebody who could be physique and mind!
Right here’s what I feel, as a 31-year-old poet who’s at the moment sat in a resort room in Sheffield on a e book tour, lacking my spouse who’s pregnant with our first little one: Wayne Rooney’s poetry is none of our enterprise. What is definitely attention-grabbing right here is the general public/personal divide that’s at play:
As Coleen says: “We have been within the public eye… and because the first mistake he’s made that’s been within the public, folks haven’t forgiven him.”
She refers, we assume, to it being reported in 2010 that Wayne Rooney cheated on her with two intercourse staff whereas she was pregnant with their first little one. Which I feel we are able to all agree is an immoral factor.
Nonetheless, firstly, to guage their relationship on that’s to feed into this concept that Wayne Roonye’s solely value is the acts he can carry out along with his physique – whether or not they be sporting or sexual. And secondly, the general public (and writers like myself) pontificating on whether or not the Rooneys ought to nonetheless be married – and even questioning what his poems entail – is us demanding a non-public and emotional fact now we have no proper to.
Rooney’s poems are personal – and as Coleen Rooney says: “We’re not a lovey dovey couple in public… and when somebody has executed one thing only for you… the phrases imply one thing.”
Phrases do imply one thing: it’s why now we have poetry and soccer commentary within the first place. And nevertheless horrible these stanzas could also be, it doesn’t actually matter so long as the particular person we love likes them. Does it?