WELCOME to the fame game, Mr Rooney. Wayne has finally found out that being a Premiership footballer is not all champagne and Nelly CDs writes Mick Jones

Along with the adulation comes the road that leads to a move to somewhere sunny.

It starts with praise for a wonderful talent and then when the press find it boring, they need to change focus to sell papers. Suddenly, he's a bit of an animal.

Well, that is according to some Liverpool fans. In shock that Celtic fans could complain when a Liverpool player spits on them, it was time to turn the tables.

If you've seen the footage, he does foolishly spit towards the sidelines when he's had just a bit too much abuse from the great unwashed.

The idea he managed to hit them was laughable. As one pundit said, he'd have to be a giraffe to spit that far.

The police settled for a slap on the wrist and told him he's being watched closely. Tell him something he doesn't know.

Since he burst on the scene, he's barely been able to move without it being reported. The spitting incident made it into the news headlines. Maybe not a shock on a slow day but when there's a war and worldwide health scare, it's not bad going.

Ever get the feeling you know where this is headed? Have a look at Beckham.

He went through the early praise for being such a clever young thing. As time went on, he had to endure the decline into a figure of national hatred after the World Cup in France.

I assume he must have killed someone for the abuse he got. Since he managed to single-handedly get England to the next World Cup, they begrudgingly accepted him although they still mocked his lack of taste and choice of wife.

They even accepted that he's not as stupid as he can appear. Now it's hard to pick holes in his clean-living, Waltons Family lifestyle and professional approach to work, they have to try desperately to move him to Spain.

Before you know it, the smallest rift at United is a massive divide. The only answer is for him to join the travelling circus in Madrid. Not a bad one, mind you.

That Ronaldo looks promising and I think Zidane might make a name for himself one day.

Gazza went through exactly the same thing, although I may be stretching belief about the clean living and the happy family.

And it might just be easier to believe that Alan Smith will be a reformed character than believe Gazza isn't as daft as he looks. Apart from that, exactly the same.