​Talksport Caller Repeatedly Refuses to Acknowledge That Wayne Rooney Has Scored at a Major Tournament

Darkness has fallen. It is nighttime, and a sudden wind rushes through the trees. Your neighbourhood is silent, bar the creaking of gateposts and the occasional bark of a dog in the distance. But wait. Almost imperceptible, the noise of a dialtone can be heard.

This can only mean one thing: someone is calling talkSPORT.

We are all familiar with this scenario. If there is one social phenomenon that epitomises modern Britain, it is football fans' absolute insistence on ringing up talkSPORT and making complete idiots of themselves on the radio. What possesses people to call up a national broadcaster late at night and shout incomprehensible rubbish about the beautiful game? Who knows, but long may they continue to do so. For the rest of us, the prying listeners, it's a source of sumptuous pleasure to hear others humiliate themselves by expressing their exceedingly silly opinions live on air.

However, one man may have just ruined it for everyone. One man may have just drawn back the curtain, brought down the meticulously stacked house of cards.

That man is Rob the Southampton fan. See, Rob has just taken talkSPORT calls to their logical conclusion – mainly by his blind, unrelenting refusal to recognise the substance of reality.

Rob called Andy Goldstein's weeknight show earlier this week, determined to argue the case for leaving Wayne Rooney out of England's Euro 2016 squad. After starting with the words, "Listen, Wayne Rooney, he's finished mate" and getting an audible sigh of disdain in response, Rob decides to bring out the big guns.

"Tell me which World Cup or European Championship Wayne Rooney has scored in?" Rob screams, triumphantly. It's a fine argument, except for the fact that Rooney scored four goals at Euro 2004, one at Euro 2012, and another at the 2014 World Cup. That's six goals in major competitions, all told. Andy Goldstein tries, perfectly reasonably, to correct Rob on his complete factual inaccuracy.

But will Rob the Southampton fan accept this? Will he acknowledge the basic facts of the matter? No. No he will not.

What ensues is an absolute delight, an argument on the radio reminiscent of the sort of debate football fans used to have in pubs before the invention of the smartphone. Everyone knows that Rob is wrong, but still he refuses to bow to the tyrannical power of real life, of proper, actual facts. He denies Wayne Rooney has ever scored at a major tournament, his tone growing ever more irate as he's corrected on his blatant, obvious misbelief. "No he hasn't! No he hasn't!" he bellows, as Goldstein informs him that Rooney did in fact score at the last World Cup. "I think he has," comes the chiding reply.

This goes on for some time, until someone in the studio procures audio commentary of Rooney's goal. Even then, Rob does very little to make us think that he's conceded the point.

The fact is, when football fans refuse to recognise the basic concept of actuality, talkSPORT phone-ins have reached their ludicrous apex. Likewise, in a world where reality is merely an inconvenient obstacle standing in the way of increasingly absurd points of view, Wayne Rooney going to the Euros is the least of our problems.