Wayne Rooney's teammate

Going about my business recently I met a pleasant young man. He was very enthusiastic in carrying out his job, working at a care hire company. He noticed that I didn't have a local accent and asked where we were from. As he had a noticeable Liverpudlian accent, I said "not far from you", though of course he was a proper scouser from Old Swan, whereas I was born in what was, at the time, Lancashire. Towards the end of our interaction, I asked what I sometimes term "the inevitable question", i.e. "Red or Blue?". More often than not the groan inducing answer is "Red". However on this occasion  the answer was rather more interesting: "I was at the Everton academy and played in the same team as Wayne Rooney".

It turned out that Wayne Rooney's teammate had been a left winger and they played together as teenagers. But of course, one went on to become England captain and Manchester United's all time record goalscorer, while the other works in an everyday job.

Wayne's Manchester United salary is quoted as being £260,000 a week. Afterwards I couldn't help thinking that Wayne's former team mate would have to work for at least 10 years to earn as much as Wayne does in one week. And that doesn't count Wayne's other income, from endorsements etc.

Now I've always said that the big earners in sport and the arts get what they get because they provide us with a very special level of entertainment, which people can develop a huge attachment to and, by definition, they earn what they get paid because their income comes entirely from revenues that they directly generate or help to generate.

And, of course, Wayne will pay a lot more tax. But even I was left dumbfounded by the implications of this comparison, which I guess most of us would find impossible to justify quantitatively.

As it happened I didn't get the feeling that Wayne would be any happier. His mate had long since given up playing football, probably because he would be far too good for any of the local teams, but presumably not good enough to get paid for doing it. And there would be the ever present risk of him getting hoofed up in the air by some galoot with a level of skill like mine, who'd had enough of trying to keep up with him.

But, wow. Ten years work......