Wayne and Coleen Rooney have four children together
Wayne and Coleen Rooney have four children togetherCredit: instagram.com/waynerooney

The former England captain fouled again and again-on and off the court.

Time and time again his unwaveringly loyal, forgiving, decent wife, Coleen, hasn't shown him the red card.

The mum of four has, once again, stood by her man.

A friend told The Sun: "Coleen has had so much stick over the years for standing by Wayne — most of it from people who have never met either of them.

"People say she's a doormat for letting him stray, for simply shrugging off his humiliating drunken antics.

"The reality is very different. It takes a strong woman to keep faith in a marriage and not jump ship at the first sign of difficulty. The only times Wayne cocks up are when she's away.

"Coleen is his rock, his moral and social barometer.

Of course, as a staunch Catholic, Coleen takes her marriage vows seriously. She committed to Wayne for better or for worse.

"Crucially, she will not ruin her boys' lives by taking them away from their dad and getting involved in an acrimonious divorce battle. Family is everything to her.

"But Coleen is also fiercely independent. She has her own immensely loyal friendship group, and interests, and does her own thing.

"People accuse her of staying with Wayne  for the money, which again is nonsense.

"Were they to divorce, in crude financial terms she'd be set for life.

"Arguably she could also make more money without Wayne than with him.

"There's this sense that she's some poor, down- trodden housewife. How many housewives do you know who can jet off first-class to Barbados, without their ­husband, and holiday at will?

The couple have been together since schoolCredit: instagram

"Coleen has a great life, and to suggest otherwise is patronising and mildly misogynistic."

But Coleen quickly became the butt of jokes on Twitter, with one saying: "Coleen's got a new perfume ­coming out — introducing Eau De Doormat!"

"She should bring out a doormat range!" added another court jester. For a while, the hashtag #doormat was trending.

"Coleen needs to leave Wayne — she's an embarrassment," frothed another so-called fan, while others pompously declared Coleen a "bad role model".

All because she didn't see fit to throw away a marriage of 13 years for the sake of some thoughtless high jinks (or, indeed, a little snooze) in a budget Manchester hotel.

Actually, they're wrong. Coleen IS a great role  model. She's also an unlikely feminist.

The couple have known one another since secondary school — they have been together longer than they were apart.

Wayne's indiscretions have been well documented. Famously — or rather, infamously — in 2004 it transpired he had been a regular at a local Liverpudlian brothel, where one of his chosen prostitutes was a 48-year-old grandma in a rubber ­catsuit known as the "Auld Slapper".

Although devastated, Coleen forgave him. Writing in her autobiography, she explained she stayed with Wayne because he had strayed before their ­relationship became serious.

She wrote: "The truth is, and I've never said this before, at that time in our relationship I'd never even slept with Wayne. I was only 16 and we weren't having that kind of relationship at that stage. We used to meet at the chippy or the cinema."

Alas, more cheating followed. Two years after their glamorous 2008 wedding in Portofino, Italy — covered by OK! mag for a reported £2.5million — it emerged he had paid for sex with another call girl, Jenny Thompson.

Jenny, who advertised herself as "Juicy Jen", went on to appear on the reality TV show Ex On The Beach — providing yet more horror for poor Coleen. Sordid claims of a threesome followed.

Then in 2017 — when Coleen was pregnant with the couple's fourth child, Cass — Wayne was caught drink-driving.