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Former England striker Wayne Rooney says he received death threats when he made the move from boyhood club Everton to Manchester United.

Aged 18, Rooney signed for the Red Devils in a £27m deal in 2004 after turning down a club record contract offer from the Toffees.

But Rooney’s move from Merseyside led to a heavy backlash from some Everton supporters.

“I got death threats,” Rooney said on the latest episode of BBC Sport’s The Wayne Rooney Show.

“My parents’ house was getting spray painted and smashed up. My girlfriend at the time, wife now, her house was getting spray painted.

“I think that’s where you have to be mentally strong. The people around you have to help.

“Leaving was difficult because I went to Manchester United, and Liverpool and Manchester was a big rivalry so that made it a lot more difficult.

“But I was always of a mindset of ‘I don’t care’. I knew what I wanted and I knew how to get there.

When Rooney made the move to Manchester United it was at a time with far less social media, the increase of which he feels creates a different kind of pressure on young footballers in the modern game.

Rooney’s oldest son, Kai, is currently on the books at United and has stressed the importance of making sure he has a strong support network as he looks to make it in professional football.

“Now the difference is social media,” Rooney said.

“When I was young, I was in the local newspapers and so everyone in Liverpool really knew me.

“Now I have it with my boy who’s 16 and he’s on social media. He plays for my United, he’s sponsored by Puma and there’s hundreds of thousands or millions of people watching them when they’re that young, and I didn’t have that really.

“Being a young player and going into the first team especially, you’re getting judged. Rightly or wrongly, you get judged and that’s where you need the people around you, people at the club or your family to keep you in a good place.

Meanwhile, Rooney also revealed that he used to exchange letters with Duncan Ferguson as a child while the Everton striker was in jail for assault.

In 1995, when Rooney was 10, Toffees striker Ferguson served a 44-day jail term for headbutting Raith Rovers defender John McStay at his previous club Rangers.

“I was a young boy who supported Everton so I used to write to him in jail, and then he’d write back,” said Rooney.

“It was just me telling him how much I love him. [He’d say] ‘thanks, it means a lot’. Obviously, when you’re in jail as well you take anything.”

Rooney joined Everton’s academy in 1996 and made his first-team debut aged 16 in 2002 while Ferguson was still at the club.

“Because I was too young to drive as well he’d take me home from training,” Rooney added.

It takes a lot for cricketers to be left starstruck by other cricketers.

It is the morning of the second day of the second Ashes Test. John Aiken is chatting in the courtyard of a Brisbane hotel when he is spotted by two former England spinners – Phil Tufnell and Alex Hartley.

Tuffers asks for a video to send to his wife and her friends. Hartley gets a selfie to put in the girls’ WhatsApp group.

All standard stuff. As a relationship expert on Married at First Sight Australia (MAFS), Aiken is one of the most recognisable TV personalities in the country. If you’ve not seen it, the show does exactly what it says on the tin – strangers are matched then meet at the moment their wedding begins.

There are numerous versions, including in the UK, but it is the Australian brand that has a cult following across the globe.

But here’s the thing. Neither Tufnell nor Hartley are aware they have just met a former first-class cricketer.

Aiken, a left-handed opening batter, had an 11-year career on the New Zealand domestic scene between 1990 and 2001. His Wikipedia page has the heading “John Aiken (cricketer)”.

“I’ve kept in contact with a lot of the Black Caps that I played with as I was growing up,” Aiken tells BBC Sport.

“I’ve stayed in touch with Mark Richardson, Chris Cairns, Chris Harris and Craig McMillan.

“What’s strange now is they see me as the guy from MAFS, not so much the left-hander who played for Wellington.”

Aiken is now 55. His post-cricket career has made him a household name in Australia. The day before, he was in the crowd at the Gabba and approached by a man in a “pink Hawaiian shirt” wanting to know about the 13th series of Married at First Sight, due to air in the new year.

Almost four decades ago, Aiken was taking his first steps in professional cricket. Born in Sydney, he moved to New Zealand at the age of 12 and made his way through the Wellington system.

In 1989, he was alongside Cairns, Harris and Adam Parore in a New Zealand Under-19s team that toured England to take on a home side including Mark Ramprakash, Dominic Cork and Darren Gough. Aiken even got to taste playing at Lord’s.

“Nick Knight put us to the sword every single time we faced him,” says Aiken.

Six months later, Aiken was making his first-class debut for Wellington. He made 156 not out against Canterbury at the famous Lancaster Park in Christchurch.

“I was a bit more conservative than the likes of Ben Duckett, Michael Slater or Matthew Hayden,” says Aiken. “If I was playing today I’d have to change my game and be more attacking.

“The one thing that held me back was that I would over-analyse pretty much everything. I’d be up at night in front of the mirror, shadow batting, all that sort of thing.”

Aiken combined his early years as a professional cricketer with studying for a master’s degree in clinical and community psychology. Though he graduated at the age of 25 and psychology would eventually become his life, Aiken’s first ambition was to play cricket for New Zealand.

He thinks he got “close”, but never managed the weight of runs to earn a black cap.

Instead, there were brushes with greatness in domestic cricket. New Zealand legends Martin Crowe and Stephen Fleming were team-mates at Wellington and an opponent was left-arm spinner and current Australia assistant coach Daniel Vettori. “He landed it on a handkerchief,” says Aiken.

Aiken regularly played against touring international teams and was run out in a one-day game by South Africa’s Jonty Rhodes, probably the best fielder of all time.

“Any day of the week it was an easy single,” says Aiken. “I hit it into the gap, I said, yes, easy one. He ran me out by half the pitch.”

When Aiken left Wellington to join Auckland, he came up against a West Indies team including the great Brian Lara.

“We had a meeting the night before and we just said: ‘Nobody say anything to Brian Lara,” recalls Aiken. “We greet him as Mr. Lara. We are polite. And if he gets bored, he may get out early. We all know that if you sledge him, he’s likely to get 400.

“So sure enough, he walks out. ‘Hello Mr Lara, how was your stay? How’s it going?’ It was delightful. He must have pumped our opening bowler out of the ground twice, then hit one up in the air and he was out. We all just breathed an immense sigh of collective relief.”

Another opponent was a young wicketkeeper-batter from Otago called Brendon McCullum – now a MAFS watcher, on orders of Australian wife Elissa.

“Anyone from Otago, you’ve got to roll your sleeves up because they’re going to come hard at you,” says Aiken.

“He had a style where he was going to really make a name for himself right from the word go. I don’t know him very well, but he doesn’t seem someone who worries too much about what others have to say.”

By the age of 30, Aiken realised the dream of international cricket was fading. After a season playing club cricket in the UK for Yorkshire side Gomersal, he called time on his playing career.

He registered a pair in his final first-class match, in February 2001. Aiken ended with four hundreds in 46 first-class matches, averaging just under 29. He made another ton in 39 List A matches.

Seven years later, Aiken moved back to Australia and set up his own private practice “seeing couples, singles, and minding my own business”. He had dabbled in some slots as a relationship expert in daytime TV, but it was an email he received in 2014 that would change his life.

Aiken was invited to audition for Married at First Sight and got the role. More than 11 years on, the show will air its 13th series in Australia in January and will follow in the UK in the spring. It is an Australian phenomenon, probably behind only children’s cartoon Bluey as the current biggest TV export from this country.

The fascination of the show is not only whether two strangers can fall in love, but also the interactions of 12 different couples – usually with fiery consequences.

“It is unscripted, it is real and it is authentic, and you don’t know what they’re going to do,” says Aiken.

It is Aiken’s role to guide the couples and “hold them to account”. The tongue-lashings he delivers are up there with the most entertaining parts of the show. Quite a character swerve from the opening batter who over-analysed himself in front of the mirror.

“I’m not inside my head when I’m in MAFS and doing my role,” says Aiken. “When I was playing cricket I was inside my head.

“Over-analysing things generally slows you down and in cricket, if you’re thinking about your technique all the time, I found that it would ultimately lead you to getting out and feeling insecure about your game.

“TV is about getting there and just dealing with whatever’s in front of you, call it out and just roll with it. I feel like I’m much more relaxed in the world of media than I was when I was playing cricket.”

In terms of his two distinct careers, Aiken says the “excitement” of Married at First Sight has the edge over the “anxiety” of opening the batting, and he would not exchange his place on the MAFS couch for a coveted New Zealand black cap.

“Cricket gave me some great moments, but I wasn’t able to flourish, to sit back and enjoy the ride,” says Aiken.

“On Married at First Sight that’s all that I do. MAFS is something that just has given me such joy.

Former Wales fly-half James Hook says players should not be blamed for leaving Welsh rugby as Dewi Lake and Jac Morgan consider moving to Gloucester from Ospreys.

Ospreys head coach Mark Jones say losing the Wales captains would be a big blow as Lake and Morgan look likely to move to Kingsholm.

Hook, who played for Gloucester and in France with Perpignan, fears that Welsh talent will be picked off.

“This was always going to be the concern for all players this season, because of the restructure in Wales, particularly for players like Jac and Dewi,” he told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast.

Hook believes the current uncertainty in Welsh rugby only adds to the risk of a “predatory raid” from English or French clubs.

“If the regions were stable and doing well, it would be a little bit of an issue, particularly for our best players like Jac and Dewi.

“They’re probably thinking ‘I’ve got a short career and I need to financially secure my family’.

Hook says it is not just seasoned internationals who will be looking to secure their futures, with more than 80 Wales-based players out of contract at the end of the season.

Ospreys scrum-half Kieran Hardy has also been linked with Gloucester while Leicester are said to be interested in Wales fly-half Dan Edwards.

“It’s the same situation for Dan,” said Hook.

“He’s come through the academy system, I coached him from the age of 16 or 17, and we’ve seen him grow into the player he is today.

“He’s a young 10 who wants to be competing for trophies. At the moment, the way Welsh rugby is, that’s not an option so naturally he’s going to be looking as well.

“It’s not just these top players who are looking, it’s the others also.”

Wales head coach Steve Tandy selected 13 England or France-based players in his autumn squad and former Ospreys coach Sean Holley sees that trend continuing for the national side.

Hook also believes the uncertainty as to whether the Ospreys will exist will play on the minds.

The WRU announced in October that it planned to reduce the number of professional men’s sides in Wales from four to three.

Welsh rugby’s governing body confirmed it proposes to grant three licences for men’s clubs.

There will be one in Cardiff, one in the east and one in the west, which is expected to result in a straight survival fight between Ospreys and Scarlets in Llanelli.

Another option that has now emerged is Ospreys owners, Y11 Sport & Media, taking over WRU-owned Cardiff, which could produce the desired number of three professional sides.

“For Jac and Dewi, the region might not be there in six months, so it’s going to be an option for them,” said Hook.

“The decision keeps getting knocked back. I don’t think the union know because they said initially they want to stay with four, then they said they wanted to go to two and now they’re saying they’ll go to three.”

Hook says that lack of clarity is a major issue for players.

“I’m speaking to a lot of people around the game in Wales, players, coaches, supporters, everybody’s in the dark,” he added.

“You just feel something’s going to happen soon but don’t know when.

Former head coach Holley was part of the Ospreys coaching staff who between 2003 and 2012 won four league titles and an Anglo-Welsh Cup .

The 55-year-old former full-back, who hails from Aberavon, says the region’s faithful would not support losing their side.

“To Ospreys fans, it probably confirms to them what is going on behind the scenes that is not being made public,” said Holley.

“There is an air of sadness, anger, disbelief. Your average fan takes things on face value.

“Let’s talk hard facts. Who has been the most successful region?”

Holley highlights anger among Ospreys fans who he says “won’t entertain” a potential 40-mile trip to watch rugby in Cardiff.

“They are die-hard fans who have gone through the hardships of the 2000s, established a brand and have two generations of supporters who have only known Ospreys,” he said.

“Ospreys are doing good things in the community and on the field are still reasonably competitive because they have that culture.

“Ospreys people will say they are one true region. That must count for something as well as the success.

“It is a hot-bed of Welsh rugby. Swansea, Neath, Aberavon or Bridgend. But there has always been the feeling the Ospreys have been the target, the ones to go and that creates the anger.”

And Holley, who also coached Bristol to English rugby’s top-flight warns Welsh rugby has reached a critical juncture.