London, Nov.25 : He may be one of England's best football players today, but Wayne Rooney recalls a time when police in his hometown of Croxethe, Liverpool, took away his football because he was playing on the street.

"When I was about 16, I got my ball taken off me by the police for playing in the street - which is pathetic really," The Sun quotes Rooney, as saying.

Asked where he used to play as a youngster, he said: "I was fortunate because at the back of my mum's house there was a five-a-side tarmac pitch.

"There was a youth club next door so I'd just climb over the back fence. I used to love it. Then I went out on the streets and played there as well. When I was younger, we used to play across a main road," he said.

The England ace is launching Wayne Rooney's Street Striker, a three-part Sky 1 series in which 50 hopefuls are whittled down to one winner who will then be sent to a summer football camp in Brazil.

ANI