 Her five-year-old son Joel, who had Rooney's name printed on his shirt last season, said: "I don't want Wayne to go." And older fans have felt just as angry. Josephine Sloane, 75, lived around the corner from the Rooney family before they moved from their Croxteth council house. She has been an Everton fan for 65 years and she scattered her brother's ashes at Goodison to fulfil his last request. Last night from her bed in Fazakerley hospital she felt so angry she decided to phone the ECHO. She said: "We should have fought harder to keep Wayne in Everton. "Liverpool is where he belongs. "I am ill but all I can think about is what is happening at the club." At the official Everton Shop near Central station, drunk fans have been shouting abuse at staff as they make their way home. But workers claimed people were still buying Rooney shirts over the weekend and they have not put them on any price promotion. It is no wonder fans are frustrated according to lifelong Evertonian Keith Gadie, 47, of Crosby. He said: "I am disappointed Rooney is going but it was inevitable. I think the club and fans should have kept a dignified silence over it. "I am pretty gutted over it all. I think we deserved some sort of loyalty." It has been a rollercoaster year for the 18-year-old England international. From the demi-god status he enjoyed after his performance at Euro 2004, he is now the subject of unchari-table chants from the terraces. The feeling is that the Croxteth teenager has bitten the hand that fed him. Everton was the club which discovered him. The boy from Croxteth who made good has been gracing the pages of the ECHO since 1998. The latest revelations about his private life in the tabloid press smack of a rock 'n' roll lifestyle which is a far cry from his humble and working class background. Rooney may be hot on the heels of the other Merseyside leaver Michael Owen. But his departure will haunt him for much longer. | 
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