Page 151 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

twenty-four

IT was August 2004 and we had just played Everton. Bill Kenwright was crying. Sitting in my office,
crying. Present were David Moyes, David Gill, Bill and me. As we studied the Everton chairman in
his sorrow, he announced that he would like to make a call. Through his tears, Bill said: ‘I’ll need to
phone my mother.’
‘They’re stealing our boy, they’re stealing our boy,’ he said down the line. Then he passed the

phone to me. ‘Don’t you dare think you’re getting that boy for nothing. That boy’s worth fifty million
pounds,’ said a female voice. Wonderful. ‘This is a trick, this,’ I laughed. ‘Is this a game?’ But it was
real. You had only to mention Everton to Bill to turn his taps on. He was a very likeable guy and
unapologetically emotional.
David Moyes was giving me the eyes. For a minute I thought it was a get-up, a performance. Bill’s
background was in theatre, after all. It occurred to me while all this was going on that I ought to check

Wayne’s medical records. Was there something physically wrong we had missed? Was this a ruse to
push the price up? My God, it was funny. Did the boy have one leg? Was I being lured into a gigantic
sting?
The negotiations to buy England’s most promising young talent were protracted, to say the least.
Bill knew the value of the boy. David Moyes was the more combative party – as I would have been,
in his position. David was realistic. He knew the club were about to receive a healthy fee and that
Everton were hardly awash with money. The official price was just over £25 million with add-ons.

Everton needed that injection. When the tears had dried and the talking was over, Wayne signed on
the line seven hours short of the deadline on 31 August 2004.
By the time he joined us, he hadn’t played for 40-odd days and had trained for only a couple of
sessions. We thought the Champions League tie at home to Fenerbahçe would be a suitable
introduction, 28 days after he had become a Manchester United player. This tentative approach
yielded a spectacular return: a Rooney hat-trick in a 6–2 victory.

After that dramatic introduction his fitness level dropped a bit and we had some work to do to
bring him to the level of the other players. Understandably there was no repeat of the Fenerbahçe
performance for several weeks.
None of this stifled my enthusiasm for him. Wayne possessed a marvellous natural talent and was
entitled to be given time to make the transition from boy to man. He was a serious, committed
footballer with a hunger for the game. At that point in his development, Wayne needed to train all the
time, and did so willingly. He was never the sort who could take days off. He needed to train

intensively to be on the sharp edge of his game. Whenever he was out for a few weeks with an injury,
Wayne’s fitness would drop quite quickly. He has a big, solid frame, and broad feet, which may
partly explain his metatarsal injuries in that period.