Until Tuesday, the Derby County striker Martyn Waghorn had met Wayne Rooney only once, in the aftermath of his debut as a professional on Boxing Day 2007 when the then 17-year-old from South Shields was given a surprise start for Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

It had been a remarkable day for Waghorn, ending in a 4-0 defeat for Sunderland in which Rooney had been at his very best, scoring one, creating another and a shoo-in for the sponsors’ man of the match award. Waghorn had been awarded the equivalent prize for the home team and the callow teenager found himself briefly alone alongside Rooney in a small room as they waited to get their awards and shake a few hands.

Struck by the awkwardness of it all, and a lifelong United fan from his days at their Gateshead Stadium centre of excellence, Waghorn decided to break the silence. “At that point I was just a young kid,” he recalls now. “I wanted to say something to him so I just said, ‘You’ve just got us 50 points for my fantasy football team’. I really didn’t have a clue. He laughed and said, ‘Brilliant lad, well done’.”

On Tuesday, Rooney was in Derby, whom he will join in January, one of the shock moves of the window that brings England and United’s record goalscorer back from Major League Soccer as a player-coach. Waghorn is delighted and he has already tweeted, tongue-in-cheek, that he will wrestle the greatest English player of his generation for the No 9 shirt which currently bears Waghorn’s name. He describes the excitement in the Derby squad as they first heard the news, broken by The Daily Telegraph’s James Ducker, and then the realisation after the opening night win over Huddersfield Town that it was really happening.