What were you like at 19?

Following Wayne Rooney’s petulant display midweek for England – a strop that could hardly been regarded more severely by the tabloids had he sprayed the touchline with a machine gun, rather than invective, as he left the pitch – his club manager Sir Alex Ferguson still proves he has a knack for the perfect quote… This, from yesterday’s Observer:

“What 19-year-old has maturity? What were you like at 19, what was I like? Jesus Christ, I was trying to start a workers’ revolution in Glasgow. My mother thought I was a communist. She was down on her knees praying every night. Than I got the ultimate threat – my granny spoke to me. She said, ‘Mammy thinks you’re a bloody communist’.

I’ll be shocked if I don’t do the business with that boy. I’ll be totally amazed.”