Wayne Rooney opens up on rugged upbringing

Former England Captain Wayne Rooney has credited his father for tough upbringing which made him imbibe the spirit of fighting for everything.

According to the Derby County manager he was ‘slapped’ by his father during a tough childhood which saw him ‘brought up to fight for everything’.

He made the revelation  in a candid new documentary that he ‘weren’t the nicest kid’ and ‘had a lot of fights when I was younger’, including with his own father.

The ‘slaps’ he suffered at home and his fighting on the streets of Croxteth in Liverpool forged Rooney’s notoriously hard playing style, which repeatedly saw him sent off for impulsive violent acts on the pitch, including stamping on the genitals of Portugal’s Ricardo Carvalho in the 2006 World Cup quarter-final

Rooney’s dad, Thomas, is asked in the film whether he had ‘a switch’  suggesting a moment where he would lose control and become violent to which he replies: ‘Yeah, more than likely.’

READ ALSORooney pledges to stay with troubled Derby County

Gary Neville, who played with Rooney for club and country, also admits that he saw Rooney throwing punches.

Rooney burst into the Premier League with Everton aged just 16 in 2002 and instantly wowed the country with his once-in-a-generation talent  and aggressive physicality and consequently lived his entire adult life under intense public scrutiny. He went on to become a legend for Manchester United and England, captaining both as his fiery temperament became calmer in the latter part of his playing career.

Now the manager of crisis-stricken Derby County, Rooney, 35, has opened up about those early years growing up in the notorious area of Croxteth, where he developed his extraordinary skills and fighting spirit.