Thursday, 3 November 2011

Wonder boy-_- Wayne Rooney

Wayne Mark Rooney (born 24 October 1985) is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Manchester United and the England national team. He is occasionally utilised in a deeper playmaking role.


Rooney made his senior international debut in 2003 becoming the youngest player to represent England (a record later broken by Theo Walcott.) He is England's youngest ever goalscorer. He played at UEFA Euro 2004 and scored four goals, briefly becoming the competition's youngest goalscorer. Rooney featured at the 2006 and 2010 World Cups and is widely regarded as his country's best player. He has won the England Player of the Year award twice, in 2008 and 2009. As of September 2011, he has won 73 international caps and scored 28 goals. Along with David Beckham, Rooney is the most red carded player for England, having been sent off twice.


Aged nine, Rooney joined the youth team of Everton, for whom he made his professional debut in 2002. He spent two seasons at the Merseyside club, before moving to Manchester United for £25.6 million in the 2004 summer transfer window. The same year, Rooney acquired the nickname "Wazza". Since then, with Rooney in the team, United have won the Premier League four times, the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League and two League Cups. He also holds two runner-up medals from both the Premier League and the Champions League. In August of the 2011–12 season Rooney scored his 150th goal, becoming United's highest goalscorer since the inception of the Premier League.


In 2009–10, Rooney was awarded the PFA Players' Player of the Year and the FWA Footballer of the Year. Rooney has won the Premier League 'Goal of the Season' award by the BBC's Match of the Day poll on three occasions. As of 2011, he is the third highest-paid footballer in the world after Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, with an annual income of €20.7m (£18m) including sponsorship deals.

Tuesday, 1 November 2011

Theater Of Dreams - Old Trafford




Old Trafford is an all-seater football stadium in the Trafford borough of Greater Manchester, England, and the home of Premier League club Manchester United. With space for 75,957 spectators, Old Trafford has the second-largest capacity of any English football stadium after Wembley Stadium, the third-largest of any stadium in the United Kingdom, and the eleventh-largest in Europe. The stadium is approximately 0.5 miles (0.8 km) from Old Trafford Cricket Ground and the adjacent Manchester Metrolink tram station.



The ground, given the nickname the Theatre of Dreams by Bobby Charlton, has been United's permanent residence since 1910, with the exception of an eight-year absence from 1941 to 1949, following the bombing of the stadium in the Second World War. During this period, the club shared Maine Roadwith local rivals, Manchester City. The ground underwent several expansions in the 1990s and 2000s, most notably the addition of extra tiers to the North, West and East stands which served to return the ground almost to its original capacity of 80,000. Future expansion is likely to involve the addition of a second tier to the South Stand, which would raise the capacity to over 90,000. The stadium's current record attendance was recorded in 1939, when 76,962 spectators watched the FA Cup semi-final between Wolverhampton Wanderers and Grimsby Town.



The ground has frequently hosted FA Cup semi-final matches as a neutral venue and several England international fixtures while the new Wembley Stadium was under construction. It also hosted matches at the 1966 FIFA World Cup and UEFA Euro 1996, as well as the 2003 UEFA Champions League Final. Aside from football-related uses, Old Trafford has hosted rugby league's Super League Grand Final since the league's adoption of playoffs in 1998 and the final of the 2000 Rugby League World Cup.