Wayne Rooney, admitting he tried to tempt the player to come to Old Trafford in his very early teenage years.
However, the youngster twice turned down official approaches from United, opting to stay loyal to his boyhood team Everton.
Sir Alex shared the story with ITV Sport's Gabriel Clarke, saying faithful coach Jim Ryan urged the legendary manager to sign the boy after seeing him perform for the Toffee's under-14 team:
Jim Ryan came back from one of our academy games at the 14 years level and he said 'I've seen a player' and he said the boy is Wayne Rooney and we tried to get him because there's a window at the end of the season - it's a one week window - where we can entice or approach a boy from another club to come join your academy, but it failed.