It was back in the late 90s and early 2000s that talk of a prodigiously talented striker in the Everton youth team began to emerge from Merseyside.
Rising through the Toffees’ ranks was a player who had netted more than 100 goals in a single season for under-11s and had broken into their under-19s side as a 15-year-old.
By the time Wayne Rooney netted his stunning last-minute winner for Everton against Arsenal just five days before his 17th birthday to become the youngest scorer in Premier League history, the cat was well and truly out of the bag.
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Ferguson on Rooney’s rise
Duncan Ferguson had a front row seat for Rooney’s stunning ascent, with the pair sharing a pitch 31 times for Everton before Manchester United snapped up the 18-year-old for £27million in 2004.
And Ferguson was in no doubt from day one as to just how talented the Croxteth-born forward was, a player who would go on to score 53 goals for England, breaking Sir Bobby Charlton’s long-standing record.
“You just knew right away that he had it,” Ferguson tells FourFourTwo during an exclusive chat in person at the Titanic Hotel, Liverpool. “He was really strong, quick, aggressive – everything you expect in a top player.
“Everybody knew he was going to have a wonderful career, and he fulfilled that, didn’t he? He came from a boxing family as well, off the streets. He was built like a f**king middleweight champion.”
But is it true that the pair’s relationship goes back even further and that a young Rooney wrote to Ferguson during the Scotland international’s 44-day stretch at Glasgow’s notorious Barlinnie Prison?
“I think he may have mentioned it years later,” Ferguson continues. “I’m not sure, but they’re a huge Everton family, and the family probably wrote about 10 letters. That’s brilliant. I’ve seen pictures of me and Wayne as a kid standing outside our Bellefield training ground.”
FourFourTwo ranked Rooney at no.3 in a list of the best Premier League players earlier this year, behind only Cristiano Ronaldo and Thierry Henry – but what does Ferguson think?
“He was a great player – I put him and Shearer as the best there have ever been in the Premier League.”
Big Dunc: The Upfront Autobiography, written with Henry Winter, is available now in hardback, eBook and audiobook
