'He was skinny and scrawny yet he ran rings around me' - 20 years on from Cristiano Ronaldo's Manchester United debut.
Cristiano Ronaldo's first forward surge as a Premier League player was not a memorable one.
"When he came on, my first thought wasn't 'I am in absolute trouble, he is going to skin me alive'," recalled Hunt in a chat with BBC Sport. But the Irishman was impressed, stating that before kick-off "he stared me in the face [to say] I'm ready". "We were trying to ignore it but it just became bigger and bigger. It was in all the papers, on all the TV programmes and the internet. It was impossible to ignore.
But without it, the club might have missed out on the man Ferguson said in his most recent autobiography was "the most gifted player I managed". When Kenyon arrived, the message was blunt: "We are not leaving this ground until we have that boy signed." Hunt was the first Premier League full-back tasked with trying to deal with Ronaldo's quick feet - and would not be the last to struggle.
"Growing up through school, there were two or three of us who were the best. When I signed professional forms, it was surreal training with a Bolton squad that had World Cup winners in it."The more I played that first season, the more I understood what levels there were. I was intermediate, then there was top and above that, exceptional.
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