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It was an image of everyday innocence. Two boys were playing football, one on one, in Cassiobury Park, Watford. They made the clich complete by using jumpers as goalposts. One was my nephew, Jamie. The other was a friend, Raheem.

They were 14, and being watched by Tom Walley, a venerable youth coach who was a formative influence on such England internationals as Ashley Cole and David James. Instinct told him he had found "a bit of purple, a bit of quality".

He organised pick-up games for the boys on a pitch marked out in the back garden of the home of Tim Sherwood, Tottenham's technical co-ordinator. Walley was old-school and devised the Dustbin Run, a rudimentary stamina test, in a field behind his house, close to the M25.

When Raheem faltered on shuttle runs between refuse and recycling bins set 150 metres apart, Walley marched him inside to tell him his fortune. Character makes a career. Lack of character will leave your life in limbo.

This was when Raheem Sterling was a rumour, before the kid became a commodity. He played with a sense of joy beyond the comprehension of men who insist he is worth the ultimate 18th birthday present, a weekly wage of 50,000. Raheem was a boy with dreams rather than a meal ticket for those with a vested interest in the fog of football's dirty war. Depending on whom you believe, he is consumed by greed and disrespectful to the traditions of Liverpool FC, or a victim being driven into the arms of Manchester City, Tottenham or Arsenal.

The closer we get to the deadline of his birthday, next Saturday, the more frenzied the speculation will become. Briefings, on or off the record, will intensify. Sterling gives the impression of having effectively surrendered control of his destiny.

When he attempted to speak for himself, to his 250,000 followers on Twitter, his message was swiftly deleted. His official account, @Sterling31, was suddenly unavailable yesterday morning. The dispute between his advisers and Liverpool is increasingly poisonous.

Handled poorly, his career could quite easily implode. He is already the subject of grubby gossip about how many children he has fathered. The consensus is two. The caution of Liverpool's manager, Brendan Rodgers, about the toxicity of celebrity is understandable.

No name has been spoken at Anfield with such expectation since the scions of the Shankly era were quietly eulogising a prodigy named Michael Owen.

He was a recognisable product of a football family with middle-class pretensions. Growing up, Sterling was sustained by the protective instincts of a single mother, Nadine, who brought up four children in the most forbidding circumstances.

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The Last Word: Sterling's road from kid to commodity