Perhaps the best place to start is by going back to the Friday lunchtime at Manchester United’s training ground when the football writers who followed the club in Sir Alex Ferguson’s slipstream were given early notice that we should think very carefully about our line of questioning when it came to Wayne Rooney, superstar.



It was December 2004, just a few months after Rooney had joined the club and every journalist who was present that day will remember the scene in United’s old press room.



The door was to the right of the main reception. There was a table at the front, a row of seats, a coffee machine that had not worked for years and not much else. The blinds always seemed to be drawn and, with no television cameras present, it was here that we used to witness, close-up, some of Ferguson’s more volcanic rages.



That day, however, saw what is widely regarded as the mother of all eruptions and a lesson, undoubtedly, for all of...