A couple of decades before Hollywood stars Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney decided to make a National League club their high-profile toy, Everton gave the Racecourse Ground a real moment of football history to savour with Wayne Rooney’s very own Welcome to Wrexham . Twenty years ago today, on October 1, 2002 – some two-and-a-half weeks before he announced himself to the Premier League with his last-gasp wonder-strike against Arsenal, prompting commentator Clive Tyldesley to tell us all to “Remember the name” – the most-gifted academy graduate the Blues have ever produced netted his first senior goal for the club.
Rooney, who had been handed his debut by David Moyes when he started against Tottenham Hotspur on the opening day of the season, was only on the pitch for less than half an hour that evening in North Wales but he ended up bagging a brace and breaking a record that had stood since 1937 to become the youngest goalscorer in Everton history at the time, aged just 16 years and 360 days.
The occasion was a second round tie of the League Cup and the Blues had fallen at the same hurdle of the competition to lower division opposition for the previous three seasons under Moyes’ predecessor Walter Smith (2-1 on aggregate to third tier Oxford United in 1999; 4-2 on penalties against third tier Bristol Rovers after finishing 2-2 on aggregate in 2000; and 5-4 on penalties against second tier Crystal Palace after a 1-1 draw in 2001).
